Contagion
by incandescens
Summary: Some things which are forgotten should be forgotten. Except when they are awakened, and then nobody is safe. Sixth Division begins its investigation. Set after Ichigo's group returns from Soul Society, with possible spoilers.
1. Chapter One

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER ONE**

Abarai Renji couldn't see any reason why a few -- just a few -- fucking bandages should be able to stop someone from doing paperwork. Especially when those same fucking bandages didn't stop his Captain from wandering into the office, standing there while Renji rose and bowed, picking up the latest reports on the desk, making a cool but caustic statement (flawlessly classical, of course) about Renji's handwriting or grammar, and then strolling out again with his scarf blowing behind him and his coat drifting round his ankles.

He'd be prepared to sit down and measure his bandages against Kuchiki Byakuya's set and he'd _swear_ he had more of them. There was no fucking reason why he should be doing the paperwork.

Except, of course, that Kuchiki-taichou had told him to.

He sat there for a moment, ink brush in his hand, enjoying a couple of memories that involved swords and knees and a brief look of actual, genuine surprise in Kuchiki-taichou's eyes. The sun was warm against his face. He could hear shinigami from his Division drilling outside. He wanted to be out there and showing them exactly what the fuck they should be doing.

Except, of course, that he had to do the paperwork.

_Incursion in 75th District, ryoka suspected, squad dispatched to investigate._ He tossed the report from the **Not Sure What The Hell This Is** pile to the **Wait For More Info Before Annotating** file, and checked the desk. Only a few left. Three in the **No Bloody Idea** pile, five in the **Wait For More Info** pile, ten in the **Due To Be Criticized By Captain For Bad Grammar** pile.

Perhaps he could take a few minutes off . . .

There was a garbled shriek from outside. Renji snatched his zanpakutou from where it was lying on the desk, leapt to his feet, thrust the door back, and raced out to the courtyard.

The scene there was a scatter of small images. The thing at the centre; target, identified, still for a moment, turn right, that's where it must have entered from the puddle of blood on the ground and the scatter of bodies and they were people who he knew, shit, he hoped that it wasn't fatal, someone had better be fetching Fourth Division, turn left, two of the juniors cornered and holding their swords up in a way that looked more like prayer or waving fans than any serious concentration of killing intent, shit, he knew he should be spending more time working with the idiots, turn centre again and focus.

It was one of those Hollows that had kept a mostly-human form, torn black fabric ragged across its body and tangled round its legs, hands like long mantis claws, hole in the chest, half as high as the nearby roofs, face a mask, except -- it was wrong, _wrong_ in a way that Renji found hard to define. It wasn't a normal Hollow, and though any graduate of the Academy knew that there were no such things as "normal" Hollows, there was something fundamentally different about it. The twisted mask that formed its face seemed to be set in a scream rather than in the usual sneer.

Blood ran from its body as well as dripping from its claws. At least the juniors had managed to do some damage.

"Ho!" Renji called to it, and watched it slowly turn its head to focus on him. "Hey, you! Shithead! I'd give you my name, but . . ."

He moved, sliding through the air like hot steel, and --

-- no, this thing wasn't fast enough, it was good, but not even as good as he'd been before trying to match the Captain, and he didn't even need to summon Zabimaru to slice a long cut across its body and up under its armpit, so that as it tried to turn and catch him the slash gaped open and blood gushed across the paving-stones --

". . .you won't need to remember it," he finished as he landed, bringing his blade back round into a guard position.

The Hollow screamed, a thin empty gasp of a sound, and tried to clutch at itself as it sagged to its knees. There was no more will or intent left to it.

Renji readied himself for a quick stroke to the creature's mask. No need to cause it more pain than necessary.

Even as he slid a foot forward and began to move, the creature seemed to shrink in on itself. Body mass melted away in a wave of white matter that crumbled onto the paving stones, leaving behind a Hollow no larger than the usual human, and as he watched in shock, its mask dissolved, seeming to ooze back into the darkness of eyes and mouth . . .

. . . and it wasn't a Hollow any more. It -- no, he -- was Rikichi, one of the junior members of his Division, and he was dying.

Renji began to say, "What the fuck?" but gave it up halfway through as a bad job, sheathed his blade, and ran forward to catch Rikichi in his arms and cradle him to the ground. Blood ran over his hands and soaked into his robe. "Fourth Division!" he yelled. "Someone get the damn Fourth Division!"

Rikichi tried to reach up and get a handful of Renji's robe, but his hands were already too weak, too uncoordinated. "Vice-Captain?" he choked, his eyes vague. "Abarai-fukutaichou? Is that you, sir?"

"Yeah, it is," Renji informed him, moving a hand to try to hold the gaping torso wound closed. Never mind that it wouldn't do any good, that it was too late, that he was just too fucking good at killing people. That wasn't the point. "Just -- hold on, Rikichi. The healers are coming."

"It was wrong, Abarai-fukutaichou," Rikichi murmured. His eyes weren't focusing. He sounded like a child who had been punished unfairly. "We went out and found it and we killed it but it did _this_ to me and I was the only one who came back and then people were saying something and it hurts."

"Shut up," Renji told him brusquely. "We'll get it, Rikichi, you hear me? You did your job."

Rikichi gave a little gasping breath. "I -- did okay, Vice-Captain?"

"Yeah."

Rikichi wasn't breathing any more.

"Yeah, kid." Renji gently lowered Rikichi's body to the ground, and shut his eyes. "You did okay." His hands were slick with the boy's blood. "I screwed up."

* * *

Renji was finishing reports when a nervous messenger informed him that Unohana-taichou of the Fourth Division requested his presence. (Of course she'd request it. She was one of the few Captains who put it that way. Others required it. Zaraki-taichou, at the far end of the scale, just shouted for it, and expected you to be there before the echoes had finished dying away.) He put the inkbrush down with careful precision, and went to see what she had to tell him.

"Abarai-fukutaichou," she greeted him as he entered the reception room. "Please will you come over here, extend your less used hand in front of you, and summon your reiatsu to what you consider a medium level."

Renji blinked. He was bringing up his left hand as he did so, though. Unohana-taichou was one of the people he owed, bigtime. "Captain," he said through gritted teeth as he began to focus, "may I ask if there is any information yet about what affected Sixth Division man Rikichi . . ."

"You may." The Captain's own reiatsu flared to match his own, and the air in the room shuddered and hissed. Her face was as calm as ever, and not a single hair in her thick braid was out of place, not a single drop of blood stained the white perfection of her coat. "I regret to inform you that Rikichi could not be saved. We believe that he was suffering from some sort of after-effect caused by the Hollow that his team was trying to kill. We are checking everyone who came in contact with him, in case it should be infectious."

"Ah." Renji eyed his hand nervously. "I'm not, um --"

"No, not at all." The Captain let her reiatsu lapse, and Renji lowered his own gratefully. "You are in good health, Abarai-fukutaichou, and recovering well, though I would recommend that you continue to avoid over-exertion for at least the next week. Thank you for your time."

"Not at all," Renji said, and bowed politely as she left.

Within five seconds he was knocking on Kuchiki-taichou's door.

* * *

"We need to investigate," Renji said briskly after the necessary courtesies. "Sir, if whatever's out there is one of the weirder sorts of Hollow -- well, we don't know that Rikichi," still that twitch of guilt, that flutter of self-blame, "and his men managed to dispose of it. I recommend that I lead a detachment out there myself."

Kuchiki-taichou eyed him coldly. "Ah," he remarked.

It was just like the old days, Renji thought nostalgically. In an attempt to make helpful conversation while Kuchiki-taichou hopefully decided in favour, he cast around for topics to discuss. "I believe Ukitake-taichou of the 13th Division was visiting earlier, sir?"

A tiny line appeared between the Captain's brows, marring the classic jade perfection of his skin. "Indeed. He wished to know when Rukia would be available to return to his division."

This was one of the topics that Renji didn't want to detonate. "Mnh," he carefully nodded.

Kuchiki-taichou fixed Renji with a frozen stare. "My sister is still recovering," he explained slowly and carefully. "Of course I will have no objection to her returning to 13th Division when she is in full health again."

Renji was fairly sure what Rukia would have to say about _that_, too. A way of mollifying both Rukia and his Captain lit up at the back of his head like a Bankai. "You know, sir . . ." He let the sentence trail off artfully.

Kuchiki-taichou raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sure Kuchiki Rukia's assistance in an observatory capacity would be useful on this mainly investigative mission, sir," Renji suggested helpfully. "Naturally it wouldn't involve any direct combat -- and if it did, naturally I'd see to it myself -- but it would let her work her way back into the field in a method that would utilise her talents, and I'm sure Ukitake-taichou would understand if she were temporarily helping your Division in this matter."

There was a long, considering pause.

* * *

Renji kicked Rukia's door open. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" he yelled cheerfully.

A scroll hit him just under the left cheekbone. "I am awake. Moron."

Renji smiled happily at the glaring Rukia. "You know something, Rukia? You're my responsibility now."

A scarlet flush grew on Rukia's cheeks. With a frosty but deliberate whetted calm, she said, "Renji, if you do not tell me what precisely is going on, I will personally . . ."

Renji held up both hands. "Whoa. Hold it. That's how your brother put it. Your kind, protective brother. You know, Kuchiki-taichou?"

Rukia rose from where she had been kneeling in front of a table of scrolls. "That does it. I'm going to --"

"Who has just agreed for you to go on an investigation with me?"

A pause. "Okay," Rukia said. "Talk."

"Team sent out to investigate Hollow. One returned infected, now dead. Others probably dead. We're going to look it over," Renji explained briefly.

Rukia reached for her sword and slung it in place. "And my honoured brother agreed to let me go exactly why?"

Renji gave her a flat stare in return. "Because you are going to apply your intelligence rather than get into any fights. Which is my job. Right?"

There was the tiniest of pauses, before Rukia gave him a dazzling smile in return. "But of course, Abarai-fukutaichou. I don't doubt your . . .capabilities."

"Rukia . . ." Renji snarled.

"Or your undoubted abilities to stamp into battle and throw yourself headfirst into the fray. Onward, noble Vice-Captain! Forward! Let not your concerns for this poor shinigami . . ."

Renji grabbed her by the collar. "Come along," he suggested, "before I change my mind."

* * *


	2. Chapter Two

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER TWO**

When they were children, they had played in places like this, chasing each other around the sparse trees, sitting in the branches and throwing twigs at their friends below them. Even through the reek of dried blood, the clearing still smelt of old wood and wet grass.

It was drawing towards sunset. The red light seemed to bleach out the red and brown stains across the clearing, leeching the colour from them.

Renji finished dragging the five bodies over to one side and making them decent. "Any thoughts?" he asked Rukia curtly.

Rukia paced back across the clearing towards him, eyes on the ground thoughtfully. Her robe was stained with grass and mud where she'd been kneeling down to check the tracks. "Well, first, they killed it. I'm sure of that. The strike pattern, and the dispersal-burst, are both standard in their markings --"

"Though this wasn't a standard Horror," Renji put in.

Rukia looked up at him and bristled. "Well, just assume for the moment that it did, because the alternative is that it blew up like a standard Horror and _then_ flew away. Right?"

Renji had to admit that wasn't very appealing. "Okay. So they took it down as normal?"

Rukia nodded. "There were only two of them on their feet by that point. One must have been Rikichi. The other one was," she nodded to one of the corpses, "that woman there. She's the only one with feet small enough to have made those prints. At which point she collapsed, from where we found her, with her sword still in her hand."

"Right." Renji rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And Rikichi didn't even try to check the bodies."

"No. Staggered straight out of the clearing, from his tracks. He must have gone directly back to the Division." Rukia frowned. "Did he make it in on his own, or did he get help from people on the way?"

"On his own, I think." Renji didn't say it, and Rukia didn't comment on it, but both of them knew how much help the Rukongai slums would have provided to a wounded shinigami on his own.

"Okay." Rukia took a couple more steps. "Now -- what exactly happened to Rikichi? You say Unohana-taichou said something about an infection? Because . . ." She hesitated. "I've seen Hollows do other weird stuff before."

"Like what?" Renji queried. He liked the idea of it being one-off abnormal Hollow weird shit. That made it one of a kind and disposable.

Rukia turned to look at the blood-smeared clearing. "Like a shinigami being possessed by a Hollow," she said distantly, "which controlled their actions while looking normal, but eventually broke out of their body and acted normally. For a Hollow. A sort of merging. Against the shinigami's will. Of course."

Renji frowned. "That actually sounds more workable with what happened than all that stuff about infection. Would Unohana-taichou have known about that?"

"I can't see that she wouldn't," Rukia answered flatly.

Well, it was as obvious as shit in summer that there was something going on here, but if Rukia didn't want to talk about it, then Renji wasn't going to push the subject. He'd trust her to tell him the important bits, and that was all that really mattered. "Okay," he said, and felt the tension go out of her. "Then we --" His nostrils flared as he felt a sudden harsh approaching reiatsu, tainted with the metaphysical stink of Hollows. "What the _fuck_ is that?"

Rukia moved to stand beside him. "Incoming," she said, redundantly, as four creatures loomed out of the growing afternoon shadows in front of them.

They had originally been Hollows. That much was obvious. But their masks had twisted and grown in unnatural patterns, and their limbs swelled and flexed as though constantly about to split or meld with each other. One of them, the largest, held itself with an air of actual intelligence. The other three hulked and leered at the two shinigami, the gaping mouths of their masks seeming to drool.

"Shinigami fools," the presumptive leader gurgled, "you shall perish for having blundered on our work here."

Four Hollows would be, Renji flattered himself, fairly manageable. Even if they were four _weird_ Hollows.

"Kill them!" the big Hollow declared, "Bring the heads back for our master!"

And of course only three Hollows was even easier. "Stay back, Rukia!" he called as he moved forward, sword loose in his hand. Not even necessary to call out Zabimaru for this sort of garbage. Rukia had better have the sense to stay back out of this. He could just imagine the Captain's face if he brought her back with a single scratch on her.

The three Hollows moved to surround him. One was dripping something that looked like acid onto the ground. The second had legs like a spider's. The third seemed normal enough, for a Hollow, but cast a human shadow, and for some reason that made it the worst of the three.

Behind them, the leader tilted its head in what might have been thought, and as Renji spun into motion, it hissed, "Rukia! Kuchiki Rukia! The Master will reward us well for your death!"

It bunched long wormy legs underneath itself, and sprang.

* * *

Well, all right, Rukia would have been prepared to admit that perhaps she still wasn't one hundred per cent recovered, assuming it was to someone other than her elder brother or Renji. And maybe it was best to let Renji take on these morons. It'd make him feel better -- for she could tell, she'd known him long enough to tell, how much he wanted an undisputed fight with something that deserved it, and one that he could win. And besides, if she came back with any injuries (unlikely as that was), Elder Brother was unlikely to let her go out again for the next _year_. At least.

But when the leading Hollow targeted on her and jumped, all bets were off.

Common sense cut in just as she was halfway through drawing her blade. This Hollow knew too much. They needed it alive to question it. She converted the movement into a turn, bringing her empty palm up towards the Hollow, and called up the Way of Binding in a shout that made the leaves on the trees around them shiver in resonance. The Hollow came to a shrieking stop in mid-air, hanging there as the spell coiled around it, gross and dripping.

Except. That it. Was. Heavier. Than it. Should. Be.

Renji was dealing with the three others nice and smoothly, he'd already taken down the first and it was shattering into powder as he finished a slashing hammerblow through its mask, and she had to be able to deal with this one herself, or he'd never trust her again on her own. Or she'd never trust herself again on her own.

It was heavy. It was looking at her, those dark empty holes in the mask focusing directly on her, and it slobbered threats from its loose-lipped mouth.

She'd felt this way once before, when Ichigo had broken free from the binding spell.

It flexed inside the bonds.

Rukia was not the sort of person who swore, even before the Kuchiki adoption, but she could currently think of all sorts of words that she wasn't going to say aloud. Fine. It was stronger than expected, she was still not fully herself, and allowing it to enter into a full contest of wills that might result in breaking the spell would incapacitate her if it managed to break free.

Renji's blade carved through the second Hollow's mask, and it dissolved with a thin shriek that carried through the air like serrated knives.

Decisions, decisions.

With a gesture she let the spell dissolve, and the Hollow fell to the ground with a rippling squelch.

Renji whirled, his blade glinting in the afternoon light, and cut through the third Hollow's leg before slicing its mask into two perfect halves that fell to dust.

"Kuchiki Rukia," the lead Hollow hissed, "you're dead." It sprang at her.

In that moment of perfect clarity, when the Hollow hung in the air like a nightmare, when Renji was opening his mouth to shout something stupid, she called, "Dance, Shirayuki," and released her blade.

Shirayuki sang in joy and purity and sweet frozen lucidity, slicing through the air so fast that it parted the breeze and shattered the sunlight into a thousand reflections, and its white edge carved through the Hollow's reaching mandibles as if it was cutting through water. The force of the blow tossed the Hollow back into one of the ancient trees, and it paused for a moment to gather itself, tentacles thrashing and squirming in the leafmould.

"Going to kill you!" it squealed. "Going to kill you and eat you and make it _hurt_!"

"Like hell you are," Renji said flatly. He moved to stand between the Hollow and Rukia. "Get up. Get up and face me. I'm your opponent. You want her, Hollow, you go through me."

Her zanpakutou was still light in her hand, still eager to swing and cut and slay, but Rukia lowered the blade, taking a step back. She thought she could _probably_ take the thing, but -- she still wasn't entirely sure.

Besides, Renji was already going to have enough to yell at her about. She'd let him dispose of this one.

* * *

"A pleasure," the Hollow gurgled, and leaned forward to swipe at him with a long clawed arm. It creaked as it moved, and frozen chunks of its body crumbled away from where Rukia had wounded it.

Renji dodged it easily. "Slow," he taunted it, "you're a slow son of a bitch, aren't y--" He had to dodge faster this time, as it brought another limb round in a hammerblow that would have buried him to the waist in the mud if it had connected.

Okay. This bastard was faster and tougher than the other three put together. He couldn't shift his ground too much or the Hollow would have a clear line of attack at Rukia (and he was going to have WORDS with her after this about pulling kidou and her sword, she knew she wasn't supposed to get involved) and that couldn't be allowed. Time to kick things up a notch.

"Howl, Zabimaru!" he commanded, and felt the habitual swell of weight and length in his sword as it grew longer. The wind hissed against its fangs, and he could hear it crooning at the back of his mind, hissing for blood. He brought his arm round in a smooth swing, letting the blade lengthen and curl to bite into the Hollow.

The creature screamed in pain, flung back by the force of the blow, then pressed into the mud as Zabimaru's teeth raked across it. "Shinigami scum! You are doomed! Doomed!"

"Yeah, yeah," Renji commented. "Now why don't you tell me who sent you here . . ." He was forced to break off as the Hollow rose into the air and oozed towards him, thrashing it back with Zabimaru as it howled and writhed. "Look, shitbag, it's not like I _want_ to talk to you, so the sooner you tell us what's going on, the sooner I can kill you and we both get this over with . . ."

The Hollow's mouth worked and shifted in its mask. "What's going on?" Its skin began to bubble unpleasantly, and new eyes started to form in its flesh as its tentacles coiled outwards. "The truth is that a new age has come! We shall arise! We shall swarm the gates of Soul Society! We shall consume all! We shall . . ."

"Renji!" Rukia screamed from behind him. "Take it down! Now!"

Renji had already been poised for action. Getting the thing to talk was all very well, but standing round while it mutated into even weirder shit was not on his agenda. At her words, he leapt, rising above the creature, and swung Zabimaru over and down, letting gravity and acceleration add their force to his own strength and to the howling blade's lust for killing. The blade cleaved through the Hollow's mask mid-rant, splitting it apart, ripping through it from forehead to chin and parting the babbling mouth in two, coming down through the oozing flesh and embedding itself in the ground before Renji drew it back to his hand as he landed.

He stood there for a moment, looking at the creature dissolve, and said out loud, "Think if we stay here some more will come back?"

"I'm not sure they're that stupid," Rukia answered sharply. "Even ones like that."

Renji turned round, anger mounting in him now that the danger was over, boiling in him like hot wine. "And you. What the hell -- what the _hell_ -- do you think you were doing, getting involved in . . ."

Rukia cut him off, stepping up to him and jabbing a bony finger into his ribs. "And you. You're just as bad as he was. The two of you just charge in without even _thinking_ of the consequences, and of course you take them on, without even considering the other person."

"I was thinking of you!" he yelled at her, refusing even to consider her references to "him". The idea, the very idea that he was in some way comparable to that carrot-topped moron . . . "You go deliberately putting yourself in danger like that --"

She put her hands on her hips and looked up at him, face oddly neutral. "I thought we were a team."

_We._ The word made him hesitate, and he swallowed his next words, trying to think what to say._We. Team._ Well, yes, of course, that was the case, and he knew he could depend on her, and . . . "I . . . shit, Rukia, of course we are, but . . ." He shuffled his feet, trying to think of a direction to back out in that wasn't obviously backing away. "You're still recovering from the whole thing with that whatsit," he offered hopefully. "Of course if you were back in form that'd be different."

Rukia flourished Shirayuki rather too obviously before putting it away. "I let you finish that creature off," she said sweetly. "It's not as if I'm doubting your abilities. Vice-Captain."

"Oh, don't give me that shit!" He slapped her across the back of her head, more comfortable with the familiar pattern of insults. "Come on. Let's get back. We can check in at Fourth Division and tell them to pick up the others, and find out about Rikichi before reporting to the Captain."

"We could split the duties," Rukia suggested helpfully. "I'll tell my honoured elder brother what we discovered, while you check out Fourth Division."

Renji thought about that. Let _Rukia_ tell the Captain about this little skirmish, rather than having to break it to him that his sister had got herself into a fight, and she'd be sure to play it down for her own sake anyhow, and also that way he could make a private suggestion to Kuchiki-taichou later that she go back to Thirteenth Division where Ukitake-taichou would probably sit on her if she even considered going near any Hollows . . . "Good idea," he said cheerfully. "Not bad at all."

Rukia was whistling as they headed back towards town. Renji had a nasty feeling he'd been outmaneuvered somewhere, but wasn't quite sure where yet. Oh well.

He'd probably find out soon.

* * *

Fourth Division was busy. Swordless shinigami were running in all directions, occasionally pushing trolleys or carrying stacks of notes. Renji stepped back into an alcove to avoid one particularly heavily loaded trolley while he waited for an audience with Unohana-taichou, and found himself sharing it with his fellow vice-captain, Kira Izuru.

"Well," he said.

"Um," Kira answered, and shuffled his feet, gaze somewhere between Renji's torso and navel. "Hello, Abarai-fukutaichou."

"Oi." Renji grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "What do you think you're playing at, huh? What happened to, "Hello, Renji?""

Kira kept his eyes lowered. "Abarai-san, after everything that's happened . . ."

"Oh, shut it." Renji kept a grip on his old friend's shoulder. "Look, we all got screwed over, didn't we? You think I'm blaming you? Forget it." He felt Kira's muscles tighten under his hand. "Them upstairs cleared you, didn't they? You're managing your Division, aren't you? It wasn't your fault. We all jump when our Captains tell us."

"You didn't," Kira mumbled. He still wouldn't look up. "You tried to save Kuchiki Rukia. You faced down your own Captain . . ."

Renji could still feel the ache from the wounds that Kuchiki-taichou had given him. "Yeah. Well. We all do stupid shit at times. Look, it's where you are now that counts. You're here." He paused for thought. "What are you doing here, anyhow?"

Kira seemed relieved by a question he could answer. "Checking up on some of my Division. They ran into some strange Hollows while out patrolling. And, well. I came to see Hinamori-fukutaichou."

"Oh," Renji said. "Is Momo any better?"

"She's conscious. She's walking. And talking."

"Well, that's --"

"She doesn't want to talk to me," Kira said flatly.

It was difficult to know what to say to that. But Renji couldn't just let it drop. Running into Kira like this had reminded him of the Academy days -- and remembering Momo then, and comparing her to how she'd been for the last few years, hell, why hadn't _someone_ noticed something sooner . . . "She'll get over it," he said with more confidence than he strictly felt, trying not to think about her determination or her ability to hold a grudge. "What she needs is something to be organising --"

"Hitsugaya-taichou is still in charge of her Division," Kira said with a total blankness to his voice. "I understand that he is prepared to partially release it to her when it is felt that she is in a proper state to resume her duties."

Renji spat. "Fucking fine. Anything else they want her to do? Any more grovelling because she believed the Captain they gave her to?"

Kira didn't answer.

"Sod it." He kicked at the wall. "Look, I'll have a word with her later. Okay? We'll get her through it."

"We will," Kira said with a little more determination. His hand drifted to the handle of his sword. "She'll be fine."

"And -- ah." His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a familiar bald head and pair of broad shoulders at the end of the corridor. "Look, I'll catch you later. Seen someone I need to talk to. Take care, right?"

"You too." Kira smiled wanly. "Don't get your Captain too angry with you."

"Who, me?" Renji snapped his fingers. "Me and the Captain, we're like that. Except when we're not."

He grinned, and ducked out of the alcove, catching up with the figure he was pursuing. "Oi," he said, and punched Ikkaku in the shoulder playfully.

"Oi yourself," Ikkaku retorted, and slapped him round the back of the head. This let Renji get a grip on him, of course, and they tussled, stumbling into the nearby room, with Renji cursing Ikkaku's slippery baldness while trying to get him in a headlock, and Ikkaku knotting one hand in Renji's ponytail and getting a grip on his neck with the other, and it would have gotten much more serious if they hadn't been interrupted by frantic coughing from over by the door.

Renji nudged Ikkaku with his elbow until the 11th Division man loosened his hold on Renji's ponytail, then tilted his head till he could see who was there. "Oh," he said with a certain lack of enthusiasm. It was that guy who'd helped out earlier, whatshisname Hanatarou. "Hey. Things going okay?"

Hanatarou folded his hands behind his back and visibly braced himself. "Unohana-taichou and Isane-fukutaichou are very busy at the moment, Abarai-fukutaichou, 3rd Seat Madarame, and I was instructed to give you the report on the current situation."

Renji let go of Ikkaku's head. Ikkaku let go of Renji's hair. "Well," Ikkaku said, resettling his sleeves, "what's the word?"

Hanatarou coughed. "Er, your twelve squad members will be out of here as soon as Unohana-taichou has completed tests on them, but because of the current injuries from other Divisions and the fact that they seem to be in perfect health otherwise this is not a priority, and therefore --"

"Hurry it up," Ikkaku growled.

Hanatarou speeded up. "-- and therefore they are currently being housed in the convalescent ward and issued with alcohol from the emergency stock to keep them from bringing the place down round our ears, please issue due condolences and apologies to Zaraki-taichou and inform him that we will get them off our hands as soon as possible and be glad to do so -- that is, we will be glad to certify them fit for duty at the earliest possible convenience."

Ikkaku snorted. "What's all this shit about disease anyhow? So we've got weird Hollows. Fine. We just kick their butts twice as hard."

Hanatarou took a deep breath. "With all due respect, 3rd Seat Madarame -- you know fighting. We know healing. If Unohana-taichou says there's a disease, I'm not going to argue with her."

"He's got a point," Renji put in hastily. "But, hey -- just how many of your people have been getting mixed up in this sort of fight?"

Ikkaku shrugged. "We've had several run-ins with weird shit on the wide patrols. Lost a few men. Then the Captain got orders that anyone who was involved in a fight with the weird Hollows was to come in for a checkup. He . . . wasn't happy."

Renji smirked nostalgically. "I'm sure."

Hanatarou backed away quietly, sidling down the corridor. "I'll just go and check with the Vice-Captain . . ." his voice trailed away.

Renji jerked a thumb after him. "He's not too bad. Better than some of them."

"Eh." Ikkaku smirked. "I liked that mortal one. You know," he brought his hands up to his chest, "the one with the big --"

"Excuse me." Both men looked round, then down, to see a small elderly woman with a Fourth Division badge standing behind them. "You. Young gentlemen. You are talking much too loud. You should take this outside."

Ikkaku gave her a friendly pat on the head. "Don't worry, auntie, we'll be out before you know it. Now like I was saying -- ow!"

They tumbled down the steps outside the Fourth Division compound, both clutching ears that had been nearly pierced by the old woman's long-nailed grip on them.

"And don't come back!" she called from above them, shaking a wrinkled fist. "Kids these days . . ."

Renji and Ikkaku looked at each other.

It was against the dignity of a seated Division member, let alone a vice-captain, to react to being thrown out like that. Therefore it couldn't happen. Therefore it hadn't happened. With a nod to communicate their understanding of this definite fact, they turned to head for their separate headquarters.


	3. Chapter Three

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER THREE**

Rukia adjusted the fold of her sash, swallowed nervously, and knocked on the door.

"Enter," her elder brother stated, as passionless as ever. He must have recognised her knock, but he made no attempt to use her name, or add any inflection to his voice.

Rukia pushed the door back and stepped into the room, bowing as she did so. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of another shinigami -- no, another _Captain_ -- no, _her_ Captain -- and made a mental note to do something painful to the guard on duty for not informing her that Kuchiki-taichou had a visitor. And who the visitor was. She converted her bow into a neat double reverence, and slid the door closed behind her as she straightened, keeping her eyes meekly lowered.

"Rukia," Byakuya said, acknowledging her presence. "You have a report on the situation?"

Ukitake-taichou gestured vaguely. "If I should go . . ."

Byakuya shook his head. "I would be grateful for your opinion on the situation. It may be a problem that we will have to deal with as a whole, rather than in separate Divisions."

Somehow Rukia felt that certain other Captains, such as non-aristocrats, would not have been asked to remain. But who was she to comment? Especially when this was a chance to get herself transferred back onto normal duty. She folded her hands behind her back, raising her head. "We found the bodies of the other five people who had been on patrol in that area, sir, killed by a single Hollow. While investigating, we were attacked by four Hollows that seemed unnatural. Abarai-fukutaichou disposed of them," she decided to leave her own part of the action out for the moment, and besides, Renji had been the one who finished them all off, "and we then returned, with the Vice-Captain going to check with Fourth Division as to whether there was any further information on what Unohana-taichou had been saying about infection."

Ukitake-taichou frowned. His chair creaked as he turned to face her. "Malformed Hollows? Infection?" He swung back towards Byakuya. "Forgive me, Kuchiki-taichou, but this all sounds rather worrying."

"It is," Byakuya stated briefly. "Describe the Hollows, Rukia. Why do you say that they were unnatural?"

Rukia frowned, calling their images to memory. "While Hollows are rarely of a particular shape or form in any case, sir, these were, um, deformed. Their masks were warped and altered, their holes seemed to be moving, and they seemed to be constantly shifting and flexing as though they were about to start, um, growing. I was reminded of the one that killed Shiba Kaien," she added reluctantly, and saw Ukitake's face pale. "While three of them weren't really any more than normal Hollows, the fourth was tougher than expected, and the vice-captain had to call on his zanpakutou to finish it off conveniently."

Byakuya raised an eyebrow. "That strong?"

Rukia hesitated. "I think that he could have dealt with the Hollow without it if he had to, sir, but it seemed to be starting to expand. We felt it would be unwise to let it do so."

"Mnh." Byakuya picked up an inkbrush, wrote something on a piece of paper, and put it down again. "Was there anything else of interest?"

"They recognised my name, sir." _There. Now I've done it._

Both men looked at her; her brother impassive, bland, giving nothing away, but now she felt she could read him a little better than before, and perhaps even that blankness was a message in itself, a statement of emotion simply in its denial. Ukitake-taichou was easier to read, face showing clear concern and sympathy. He was the first to speak. "Aizen?"

Rukia felt her lips thin as she stiffened herself to remain calm. "Well, they did say the "Master" would reward them for our deaths, and talked about bringing our heads back for him, and that a new age had come, and that they would arise and swarm the gates of Soul Society and consume all, sir. It seems plausible."

_Tone down the sarcasm when reporting to elder brother,_ she reminded herself half a second too late.

Byakuya's brows drew together. Instead of waiting for a while to allow her to realise the depth of her rudeness, however, he commented, "It does. Did you take a part in the fight yourself?"

"Strictly in self-defence, sir," she answered. That one she'd been waiting for. She let her perfectly clean clothing and unwounded state speak for itself, rather than try to justify her actions.

Ukitake-taichou steepled his fingers. "She's certainly fit for the job," he commented to Byakuya, "and I would find her assistance very useful at the moment. You know that with the loss of three Captains, we're all running short-handed . . ."

Byakuya made an indeterminate noise that could have been vague agreement or absolute refusal.

"And this infection business?" Ukitake-taichou asked.

"Renji knows more about that than I do, sir," she answered. "He told me that Unohana-taichou had been checking him and other people in case whatever happened to poor Rikichi was contagious. Though as I said, personally it reminds me of that previous problem with a Hollow." She chose not to mention names this time. It had been painful enough to say Kaien's name once already. "Ah -- could there be some link with those malformed Hollows that attacked us?" She remembered a concept that Ichigo had used at one point, but failed totally to remember the words. "Targeted diseases?"

Both Captains frowned at the thought, then exchanged glances. Slowly Byakuya said, "Someone should speak to Twelfth Division about this."

"Someone should," Ukitake-taichou agreed. He did not sound enthusiastic or ready to volunteer.

"Unohana, perhaps," Byakuya suggested.

"She'd be far better suited to understand what he had to say than we would," Ukitake-taichou agreed.

"I'll mention it to her." Byakuya frowned. "Is there anything else, Rukia?"

"No, sir," she said, and bowed.

"I'll speak with you later." He gestured her out, and she obeyed, with a last glance towards Ukitake-taichou, and a last silent plea for intercession and a return to duty.

* * *

Byakuya walked in on Rukia later without preamble, coming into her study and finding her with her hands still knotted in a kidou mudra. With a quick gesture he cut off her attempts to explain, or at least apologise, and said, "I'm returning you to active duty."

Rukia's eyes widened, and she clasped her hands to her heart, overtaken by sheer joy. "Oh, _elder brother_ . . ."

"With a couple of other points." He seated himself in her chair, leaving her standing. "Firstly -- what is the name of that Fourth Division healer who attempted to rescue you?"

"Hanatarou," Rukia supplied. "Ah -- do you want me to ask him for further details, elder brother?"

He nodded slightly. "It is possible that Fourth Division will be more occupied with taking care of the injured than in providing timely reports. Additional information would be useful."

Rukia's eyes narrowed, but she didn't allow a single trace of _so why don't you trust Unohana, or who do you think is going to censor her reports_ to enter her face. "Of course, elder brother. I will ask him in passing." An idea sparked. "Indeed, if Thirteenth Division is sending shinigami to Fourth Division for checkups too, then I might well need to liaise with Fourth Division for reports, and could speak to Hanatarou then."

_It isn't using him,_ she reassured herself. _It's just finding out what's going on._ And she forced to the back of her mind all those memories of being locked away in the high tower with no news, no speech, nothing, only the walls and the window that looked out on the execution block, and all the desperate helplessness that had ground her down to a edge that would have slit her own wrists.

He nodded. "Also --" This time, he hesitated. "Ukitake's conduct disturbs me."

Rukia drew a quick breath between her teeth. The Captain's health was uncertain, but if it had become positively dangerous . . .

Byakuya looked at her with eyes as cold as winter lakes. "Ukitake-taichou did not react in the way that I expected to certain parts of the news. I wish to know why."

Slowly, feeling as if her face had frozen, Rukia said, "You put me in a difficult position, elder brother."

"You are a Kuchiki." He rose in a swirl of robes and scarf. "I am confident that you will do your duty."

The door closed behind him.

* * *

"Rangiku."

Rangiku raised her head from her arms and looked blearily across the desk at her Captain. His white spiky hair seemed to glow in the morning -- no, make that mid-afternoon -- light.

"Have you finished those checks?" Hitsugaya asked impatiently.

Purely in the interest of gaining a few seconds to try to remember which checks he was talking about, she raised her arms above her head and stretched. Her bosom heaved. Memory hit mid-flex. "Oh, those checks, sir," she said while her Captain's attention was mid-wobble. "Yes, all done."

Hitsugaya swallowed. "Good. Any word from Fourth Division?"

"They say they'll have that patrol of ours back by tomorrow, sir." Rangiku lowered her arms and folded them again. "Some sort of routine medical check on exterior patrols over the last few days."

Hitsugaya frowned. His eyes glinted like polished ice. "That was all the reason they gave?"

Rangiku tried to remember the report in question. Had it been pre-drink or post-drink? She was fairly sure she'd have remembered if they'd said anything important. "Yes, sir."

Hitsugaya began to pace thoughtfully. "Doesn't the timing seem a little odd to you, Rangiku?"

Rangiku shrugged. "I didn't like to argue with Unohana-taichou, sir."

"Think about it." He counted points off on his fingers. "Why now, when we're expecting an attack? Why just people who've been outside on wide patrol, rather than everyone? Why force them to come in to be checked, rather than just sending competent healers out to all the Divisions separately? Why didn't Unohana mention this at the Captains' Meeting five days ago, if it was planned?"

"Well, then, it can't have been planned," Rangiku agreed. "Perhaps there's a disease going round in the outer districts?"

"Hm. Possible. But in that case, why not tell everyone publicly? And why not send the healers out there instead?"

Rangiku shrugged. "To avoid panic?"

"There's a simpler solution than that." Hitsugaya stopped. "Twelfth Division."

Rangiku tried to follow the logic. "You think they're behind things?"

"It'd explain so much." He turned to face her. "The fact that Unohana-taichou doesn't want to get into another inter-Division conflict, under the current circumstances. The reason why she's avoiding any public discussion of it. If Kurotsuchi-taichou has unfortunately, um . . ." He hunted for words.

"Released a deadly killer bug on Soul Society," Rangiku suggested helpfully.

Hitsugaya gave her a glare. He disliked that sort of terminology. "We need to know more."

"You could investigate." When Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow, Rangiku pointed out, "He likes you."

Hitsugaya swallowed. "That's beside the point."

"He sees you as his intellectual equal -- okay, his intellectual possible disciple, sir." She waved aside his mounting objections. "He's never as rude to you as he is to the other Captains. If you just went over there and said you wanted to talk to him and see what he was up to, I'm sure he'd show you round."

Hitsugaya looked mildly nauseated. "I could send you."

Rangiku gave her most dazzling smile. "I don't think he likes me, sir."

"I'm not sure I do at the moment, either," Hitsugaya muttered. "Very well. Send over a runner. See if he can give me an appointment today or tomorrow."

"With pleasure, sir," Rangiku said sunnily. Ah, this was the way to wake up.

* * *

Ise Nanao was filing reports when her Captain drifted through her door in a cloud of wine fumes. She laid her brush down precisely next to her current document, and looked up, steepling her fingers demurely.

Kyouraku-taichou dropped down into his chair in a loose billow of pink robe. One large hand tilted his hat so that he could inspect her; the other dangled loosely over the arm of the chair.

"Sir?" she asked, after the requisite few moments of polite silence.

"Nanao-chan," he said, and she knew it was serious because he had forgotten the _my lovely_, not to mention the _my beautiful_, _my adorable_, and _my exquisite_. "I need some research done, and some investigation done, and I need it done quietly."

"Sir," she said, and her fingers interlaced themselves, eager to be flicking through papers.

"And I want you to come to it with an open mind."

She raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean you're not going to tell me what it's about, sir?"

He smiled. "Brilliant as always!"

Every once in a while, her unalterable devotion and loyalty to her Captain _would_ hit these little roadblocks. "Where would you suggest I start, sir?" she asked resignedly.

"Twelfth Division." He watched her from under the rim of his hat.

She was silent for a moment, considering. "Kurotsuchi-taichou is . . . quite careful about his security."

Her Captain nodded. "He is. However, he's going to be having a meeting with Hitsugaya-kun early tomorrow morning."

Nanao raised her eyebrow again.

"Heard it over a cup of wine," Kyouraku-taichou explained blandly. "I don't suppose you have anything you urgently need to discuss with pretty little Nemu?"

"Hm." Nanao considered several options. "A while back, Kurotsuchi-taichou was proposing a new type of anti-Hollow shielding. I could suggest that you were curious but that you wanted to see the data first."

"I leave it in your capable hands." He relaxed into his chair.

There was silence.

Eventually, the Captain said plaintively, "Darling Nanao-chan, is there any wine in my desk?"

* * *

Byakuya waited for Renji to finish his report without asking any questions. Renji himself did not find this particularly reassuring. He was used to being pulled up and queried. Maybe even several times in one sentence. On this occasion, however, his Captain seemed to want to listen to the full details as a whole.

Somehow he didn't think it was because Kuchiki Byakuya liked the sound of his voice.

Eventually he finished and stood there in quiet prayer. _Please let him not have noticed the bit about Rukia-the-idiot fighting. Please let him not have noticed the bit about Rukia-the-moron fighting. Please . . ._

"Mm." Byakuya regarded Renji, dark eyes deep in thought.

_Dear gods, if he doesn't notice this I promise to amend my way of life and cut down on the alcohol and swear at least a bit less . . ._

"I have a mission for you, Renji," Byakuya continued. "It will not involve Rukia. She is returning to duty with the Thirteenth Division."

_Fuck yeah!_ Renji's innermost soul exulted.

"You are going to Earth," Byakuya finished.

Renji blinked. Blinked again. "Earth?" he said, then quickly added, "Sir. Why?"

Byakuya gave him a slightly pitying look. "Really, Renji. Have you forgotten the anomaly there?"

And it hit him. "Urahara. That weirdo Ichigo mentioned. He knows way too much. And even if he isn't on Aizen's side, he --"

But Byakuya was shaking his head. "Not just that. This was before your time, Renji, and I had not been a Captain long myself when it happened, but Urahara Kisuke was the previous Captain of Twelfth Division. He left. He was exiled in his absence. His crimes were never fully discussed. The previous Head of the Covert Ops Division, Shihouin Yoruichi, left at the same time."

Renji was aware his jaw was hanging open. Oh, holy shit. His Captain had to be joking. Except that his Captain never joked. And when he considered all the things that apparently this Urahara guy had been responsible for, not to mention Miss Furry Sex On Two Legs . . . "You think he's somehow responsible for this?"

"I think," Byakuya said flatly, "that we can no longer afford not to investigate. For a long time nobody has known where Urahara Kisuke fled to. Now that we do know, and now that he may have a reason to cooperate with us -- we need to find out if he is involved in this. For his sake as much as our own. You are going alone, Renji. Be careful."

"And -- do I tell that Ichigo boy, sir?" Renji asked.

"Him?" Byakuya blinked. "Him least of all. He has finished his involvement with Soul Society. Let it rest there. Now go."

* * *

"Something weird and unusual is going on."

"Fuck, yeah."

"I think it's possibly related to Twelfth Division."

A stretch. A scratch. "Could be."

"Want to check it out?"

"Sure. Why not?"


	4. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Hitsugaya Toushirou, Captain of the Tenth Division, knocked on the gate of the Twelfth Division and prayed for a thunderbolt from heaven to smite the building directly in front of him.

Unfortunately this did not happen. Clearly God didn't exist. Or was a sadist.

A bustling shinigami swung the door open, and bowed obsequiously. "Hitsugaya-taichou! We're honoured to have you drop by! Kurotsuchi-taichou ordered that you be brought to him immediately -- please follow me!"

Hitsugaya did his best to look approvingly to left and right as he followed his guide across the blasted landscape, and not to speculate too much about the craters and tattered remnants that littered the compound. _You're a distinguished visitor here_, he reminded himself. _The Captain is pleased to welcome you as a guest; you're the sort of interested spectator he never usually gets._

A group of scientists rushed past, bouncing a trolley in front of them. The shinigami strapped to the trolley waved a hand limply and groaned something about not wanting extra limbs.

_And try not to think about why he never gets interested spectators._

Kurotsuchi Mayuri was in the first laboratory they checked -- much, Hitsugaya suspected, to his guide's relief. The Twelfth Division captain turned to greet his guest, extracting his hands from the innards of something vaguely Hollow-esque, but was polite enough to remove his gloves before approaching normal conversational distance. Kurotsuchi Nemu waited patiently in the corner, arms folded around a clipboard, face as blank as an exquisite doll.

"Well!" Kurotsuchi Mayuri began, white mouth curving in a broad smile. "It's good to see that you don't treat me the way some of those old fossils do, Hitsugaya-taichou. I appreciate your making the effort to come and see me like this."

Hitsugaya smiled frostily in return. "Not at all. I am most grateful for your receiving me at such short notice. I value the great contributions which Twelfth Division has made to the Gotei 13, and hope to cooperate with your Division more closely in future. I apologise for any inconvenience which I may have caused you."

Kurotsuchi approached. (Hitsugaya deliberately avoided the word "slid", banished it from his memory, buried it six feet under, and piled furniture on top of it.) "Allow me to give you a tour of our current projects. Nemu! Finish off this dissection, then file the results, then go and bring the latest reports -- you know the ones -- to meet us with at the end of our tour!"

"Yes, sir," Nemu said, bowing her head gracefully. She walked over to where Kurotsuchi had left the gloves, pulling them on over her smaller hands.

Kurotsuchi dropped a hand (and really, it didn't feel like a bagful of ooze inside a rubber glove, of course it didn't) on Hitsugaya's shoulder. "I think you'll be extremely impressed with our latest advances. Come this way . . ."

* * *

Ise Nanao presented all the proper forms of authorisation at the side door, and had them signed in triplicate by the squinting guard. She was hardly an unfamiliar face here; everyone knew that Kyouraku-taichou couldn't be bothered with paperwork, and therefore tended to send her on all the administrative errands. With a brisk and official air, she made her way into the archive library.

It was, as always, dusty and quiet. High stacks of books and scrolls lined a long room with regular alcoves, and light filtered down in shafts from high slanted impenetrable (she'd tried once) windows. For someone as obsessed by research as Kurotsuchi-taichou, it had always seemed odd to Nanao that he wouldn't take similar care of his library facilities. Then again, very few people took what Nanao considered to be proper care of their bookshelves. It was a shame.

She'd formulated the request for archive access with reference to "Kurotsuchi-taichou's recent description of new anti-Hollow shielding", which was vague enough to deal with anything from the last few decades, especially if she explained that "Kyouraku-taichou had been a little unclear about which sort he meant". She quickly scribbled a few notes in the book under her arm from two recent tests, to give herself protective colouration in case anyone should find her at work, then penetrated deeper among the shelves.

Now what exactly was she looking for?

It was something that Kyouraku-taichou suspected was involved in Twelfth Division research. It was probably something to do with the recent Hollow oddities. She'd heard the casual rumours about what was going on; more to the point, she'd read the official message from Unohana-taichou requiring and requesting that any shinigami who had been involved in conflict or contact with any unusual-seeming Hollow should come in to Fourth Division for checks and potential quarantine. This hadn't created any major difficulties yet, though the potential bottleneck was envisageable . . . but in any case, that gave her some indications. Unohana-taichou was clearly thinking in terms of some sort of disease which could be passed from Hollows to shinigami. Twelfth Division would not have been put in charge of curing such a disease; they might, however, have been set to create one.

She walked over to the index, then paused. There was also the possibility that the disease-effect had been created accidentally by something which Twelfth Division had been producing, which would mean that it wouldn't be directly filed under germ warfare experiments. Absently, she tapped a finger against the filing cabinet.

And then again, this was something which would have been covered up to some extent. Kyouraku-taichou's words suggested that it wasn't a matter of open record. But equally, Twelfth Division weren't the sort to ever destroy records permanently, under Kurotsuchi-taichou . . .

. . . she frowned. Or under their previous Captain, Urahara Kisuke. That was also a possibility. So how was she supposed to research something which she wasn't sure of in the first place, and which would have been hidden in the records in any case?

Maybe that was the answer. She felt her mouth shape itself into a thin smile. Postulate: this was a project which Twelfth Division had tried to hide. Facts: Kyouraku-taichou clearly suspected it, and Unohana-taichou knew about it. Postulate: it had occurred before her vice-captaincy, as otherwise Kyouraku-taichou could have dropped some kind of hint. Note: this meant it would have to have been during Urahara Kisuke's holding the position of captain, as his, ah, rapid exit had occurred at around that point, and indeed she had never been able to ascertain the precise details.

She tapped her finger on the filing cabinet again, thinking.

So, she was looking for a research project which had occurred during Urahara Kisuke's captaincy. but which would have had most of the details hidden or destroyed. It would have had to have dealt with Hollows, if it was found to produce this sort of result. It probably involved some degree of casualties among the researchers and research subjects, so check the death records. That was it. Death records under Urahara Kisuke, looking for any particular spikes, work from there.

With enthusiasm and efficiency, she began riffling through the indices.

* * *

Madarame Ikkaku hung on the windowsill, peering into the room beyond thoughtfully. Ayasegawa Yumichika hung next to him, carefully adjusting a lock of his hair via the reflection in the windowpane.

"You see anything?" Ikkaku hissed. They both knew the dangers that could lurk in the Twelfth Division laboratories.

"Looks quiet to me," Yumichika noted. "Let's get in before Yachiru comes looking for us."

The firetrap on the window-frame was surprising but not unexpected, and as Ikkaku pointed out while they stamped out the flames, only a wimp cares that much about his sleeves. Yumichika would have disagreed, but he was too busy saving his hairstyle.

* * *

"Look at this." Kurotsuchi indicated a glass pane set into the wall. "While naturally we cancelled Project Spearhead under direct orders from above, there was no reason not to keep the modifications which were developed during the project. Observe."

They both peered through into the room beyond, where a young shinigami was busy punching holes in solid steel.

"Imagine that as the norm," Kurotsuchi said, his voice avid, from just behind Hitsugaya's shoulder. "Not just a combat speciality for those who have nothing better to do with themselves, but a standard modification built into all your Division. Wouldn't that improve performance?"

"It would make things a great deal more efficient," Hitsugaya said neutrally. "I'm very impressed. How is it done? Muscle implants?"

"Psychosurgery reconstruction and amplification," Kurotsuchi said cheerfully. "Let me show you some more."

* * *

"You appear busy."

Nanao looked up from the scroll between her hands, and saw Kurotsuchi Nemu in the doorway. _Careless of me . . ._ "I apologise," she said without blinking. "I hope that I am not inconveniencing you in any way, Vice-Captain."

Nemu shook her head. "Not at all. But I am curious about why you are looking at the death figures. I thought you came in order to check some of the anti-Hollow-shielding results?"

Nanao weighed possible lies, and possible overly excitable reactions, and decided that this might be an occasion where the truth would serve best. "Indeed. But it struck me, while I was researching, that some of the recent problems with Hollows could conceivably be traced to some of Urahara Kisuke's research." She watched the flicker of Nemu's eyelashes. "Such a project would be likely to have a very high death toll, and to have been swept under the rug in order to conceal it from official notice."

"Indeed," Nemu said slowly. "Such a situation would not in any way be the fault of current Twelfth Division work."

Nanao was fairly sure that the other woman had taken the hook, but decided to add a bit of bait just in case. "Unfortunately, I lack the expertise to interpret fully the experimental records that are stored here . . ."

Nemu strode across briskly to peer at the death figures. "Have you any likely candidates?"

"Mm. I had just been noting down the ones I thought were most probable. This one, here, three hundred years before his exile; this one, fifty years before his exile; and this one, a year before his exile."

"This one," Nemu said without hesitation, tapping the third entry with a perfectly manicured nail.

"Why that one?" Nanao asked.

Nemu never smiled, but the line of her shoulders conveyed the satisfaction of one who has succeeded in a test. "Look at the titles. Project Raitei. Project White Serpent. Project Enhancement. Ise-fukutaichou, I assure you that nobody here would ever choose to call something "Project Enhancement", unless they actually wanted it to go unnoticed. My father disapproves of such lack of imagination and failure in ambition."

"Ah." Nanao let the scroll close. "I see. So -- where would the records on this be, do you think?" _And what interesting timing._

* * *

Acid vats could be avoided by springing vigorously over them. Spiked walls could be destroyed by brute force, or by sprinting past them before they could collide.

Arcs of electricity were "pansy-ass things that no real 11th Division fighter would take seriously".

Poison gas, however, was thoroughly unfair, and both Ikkaku and Yumichika were going to have very severe words with whoever had put invisible vomit gas in that room they'd just escaped from.

As soon as they'd finished throwing up, that was.

* * *

"Of course," Hitsugaya said, and hoped that it sounded plausible and not like a complicated trap, "it's almost a pity that Aizen has so thoroughly discredited the whole shinigami/Hollow-blending line of research. While naturally one can't support the lengths he went to, there could have been advances there which would have been extremely useful."

Kurotsuchi's eyes almost seemed to glow. "My reasoning precisely. My _words_ precisely! Hitsugaya-taichou, you must accept my apologies. I have been underestimating you for a while now. They don't call you the boy genius for nothing, it seems. There is a great deal of potential which has been utterly ignored by those without the sense to see it!" He paused, and seemed to withdraw behind his usual mask, like a snail into a shell. "But of course, there are also potential dangers."

Hitsugaya tilted his head and attempted to look winsomely admiring and curious. "But surely, with the proper precautions . . ."

Kurotsuchi sniffed. "Believe me, Hitsugaya-kun, there are some things which precautions cannot allow for. Why, the previous Captain -- but let's not go into that. Trust me when I tell you that even for the most ardent and experimental scientist, such as myself, there are some areas which are better left alone. It is more profitable to concentrate on areas which can provide quantifiable and definite benefits . . ."

_Like turning yourself into green ooze_, Hitsugaya thought.

". . . rather than those which may lead to unjustifiable danger. Anything of that nature would be put down most severely by the higher authorities." His eyes darkened. "It would be unwise to raise that sort of topic again."

"A pity," Hitsugaya said, and tried to look sincere. That had sounded like a genuine response, rather than something trotted out for official use. But what could have set Kurotsuchi Mayuri so thoroughly against the topic? He'd have thought that a scientist of his calibre would be demanding specimens and calling for the scalpels. A previous bad experience, maybe -- but if so, what? And how could he find out about it?

To one side, an alarm began beeping. "Excuse me a moment," Kurotsuchi requested, and hit several buttons on the computer screen next to it. "What is -- oh? Oh, really? Well, keep on filming them, you dolt! We haven't had a chance to test those anti-intruder measures in ages! Do you think you can get them through the shark pool?"

Hitsugaya reassured himself that it couldn't be Matsumoto. She wouldn't be that stupid. He worked to believe that.

* * *

They had spread the documents that Nemu had found over the nearest table.

"Interesting," Nemu said, flicking through a sheaf of notes. "Apparently, while Urahara Kisuke had overall command of this project, they were using expertise from various other sources. Someone in Fourth Division was involved, and they were also factoring in high kidou and alchemy levels. Urahara Kisuke had the experiment under his personal supervision, with Kurotsuchi-fukutaichou not being involved." She frowned. "They were working on non-conscious modified souls at first, trying to trace the actual enhancements caused by shinigami or Hollow status, in order to artificially induce them in shinigami later."

"Logical, I suppose," Nanao granted. She decided not to push the issue of why Kurotsuchi Mayuri might not have been involved, and tapped the next few stacks of paper. "These would be the standard experimental results, I take it?"

Nemu nodded. "Everything went smoothly, or at least, within the usual tolerance parameters, for a while. Some Hollows were captured and kept in enclosures outside the walls in the hope of removing their powers. After all -- this is a note from Urahara Kisuke himself here -- "possibility Hollow power removal, inference depower Hueco Mundo, therapy?" Or so I read the handwriting."

"Mm. Very bad handwriting."

"Very." Nemu checked the next pages. "Ah. Now here it gets interesting."

Nanao correlated the date against the death figures that she'd brought along. "We have some actual shinigami deaths that day."

Nemu nodded. "They were volunteers. They'd stopped using the mod souls by this point -- they'd started reaching an unacceptable degree of sentience." Her words were as calmly paid out as always. "These shinigami had volunteered for actual reception of some Hollow modifications. But look, this note shows that the Hollow specimen numbers went down too --"

"It states full purification mode, though," Nanao pointed out, leaning over Nemu's shoulder. "So they were cleansed properly."

"But why the shinigami deaths?"

"No. No, wait a minute." Nanao leafed forward through the papers. "Look here. They still had five Hollows left at this point. I thought that was an error, because it said earlier that there had been eight purifications, and they'd only had ten specimens, but if you factor in the three shinigami who died, and assume that they were the purification deaths . . ."

Nemu pursed her lips. "The shinigami assumed the full characteristics of Hollows, you think? Masks and all?"

"It'd make the numbers match," Nanao said, more excited now. "What happened the next day?"

Nemu turned another page. Her eyes widened. "The remaining five Hollows were put down," she reported, "but we have _twenty_ purifications reported. How many shinigami deaths?"

Nanao checked. "Thirty-five. And another twenty the next day. And five the day after that. But if all the Hollows were dealt with the day before that --"

"Ten purifications recorded the next day," Nemu added. "And one the day after that."

The two women stared at each other.

"It didn't stop with the death of the Hollows," Nemu finally said. "It went on till they somehow closed it down."

"What happened to the mod souls?" Nanao asked. "And what about Urahara Kisuke?"

Nemu flicked through the pages, then frowned and rechecked. "It doesn't say. How careless. But why do you mention the previous Captain?"

"The timing." Nanao's brows drew together. "Doesn't it strike you as a little significant that shortly after this occurs, he is exiled on unspecified charges --"

"Charges of creating a gigai that was undistinguishable from human," Nemu cut in. "It's in the records."

"That's certainly what we've been told," Nanao agreed.

Nemu frowned, now. "This is disturbing."

"It is." Nanao opened her book and picked up one of the stray pens. "So --"

Nemu's hand caught her wrist. "Ise-fukutaichou, I am not sure that I should be letting you leave with this information."

Nanao broke free with a twist of her hand, closing her book as she did so. "Kurotsuchi-fukutaichou, I must insist."

"I regret this," Nemu said, and swung into a straight kick at Nanao's head.

* * *

Ikkaku ducked under a flying net of razorblades, and scanned the area ahead. A net of laserbeams blocked the path to the east. "Over there!" he called to Yumichika, pointing at a large vat of water.

"It could be acid," Yumichika said dubiously as he forcibly dismantled a large clawed apparatus.

"Naah." Ikkaku grinned. "Look, there's big fishes in it. Come on!"

* * *

"Ah -- what is going on?" Hitsugaya asked nervously.

Kurotsuchi's gaze was fixed on the viewscreen. "It looks like some Eleventh Division louts. They attempt to infiltrate every now and again. Absolutely marvellous for testing our anti-intruder equipment. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get suitable material to try out the fire ant pits. I even allow a certain amount of betting on it -- I'm sure you have similar means of encouraging unit cohesion in your own ranks, Hitsugaya-kun?"

Hitsugaya swallowed. As far as he knew, the only current betting pool in Tenth Division was _How Long Till The Captain Gets It On With Matsumoto_, and he'd got a heavy anonymous bet on _Never_. "Similar," he agreed. "But what if they die?"

Kurotsuchi snorted. "I have a signed waiver from that moron Zaraki that any of his people who die on my premises are formally expelled from Eleventh Division as wimps. Simple enough."

"Oh, very much so," Hitsugaya agreed, and decided just to be grateful that it wasn't Matsumoto out there.

* * *

Nanao ducked the kick, feeling the wind as Nemu's left foot swept past her face, and fell into a crouch, bringing her leg round into a sweep at Nemu's right ankle. _This should really have been expected._

Nemu leapt into the air, landing smoothly on the table amid the documents. She relaxed into a loose stance, one hand extended.

Nanao converted her sweep into a pivot, and let the motion carry her upwards and several feet away from the table. Perhaps negotiation --

Nemu dived forward, flipping into a cartwheel that brought her upright again with her right hand moving into a sideways strike at Nanao's neck. Papers sprayed from the table on which she had been standing, flying outwards in all directions.

Nanao brought her left arm up to parry, catching consecutive blows on wrist, forearm, wrist, and powered into a jump over Nemu's head, turning to kick downwards. Nemu dodged the movement, but it took her a step forward, letting Nanao gain the height advantage with one foot on a table and the other raised above her head and balanced against the shelf behind it, both arms spread and hands open.

Nemu frowned, face tightening, then charged, hand slamming squarely into the table. It split from the force of the blow, halves flying to right and left to crash into the sides of the alcove. Books fell from the shelves, opening as they spilled floorwards, dust thickening in the air.

Nanao flicked herself upwards, then converted the motion into a rush across the room, flickering jumps from book to book as they tumbled through the air, spinning on her last movement to flick her hand along a shelf and send scrolls scattering outwards, spinning through the flakes of dust towards Nemu. She landed on the ground, hands still open, and used the moment to catch her breath.

Nemu caught a scroll from the air and used it to bat the others down, knocking them around her in a spiral so that they fell to the ground in a wide circle around her. She spun the scroll tube in her hand, face full of mild concentration.

Dust drifted down through the shafts of light.

Nemu took the offensive again, flipping the scroll tube from her right hand to her left, then moving in. She struck at Nanao's right shoulder, fingers folded together into a hard point.

Nanao blocked it, blocked again, and pondered tactics. It would be a very bad move to seriously injure Kurotsuchi Nemu under these circumstances -- assuming that she could manage it, for the other vice-captain was certainly competent. It would be an even worse one to take the matter to the level of swords. Even knocking her out and then leaving would result in future awkwardness between their Divisions, for Nemu would tell her Captain the moment she woke up, and frankly she couldn't blame her for that. But even if she were to walk out now --

A faster blow by Nemu ripped her right sleeve open at the shoulder, and nearly caught her hard enough to bruise the joint. Nanao responded with a sequence strike of knee-hip-side, and spun backwards in the momentary gap to kick the flexion point on a set of shelves. Books came cascading out from the other side, forcing Nemu to knock them away and take a half-pace back.

* * *

It was hard to fight back large fish with fucking large teeth while trying to swim at the same time, Ikkaku mused. It was even harder when the rim of the pool seemed to have gone and risen and was firing laser beams at itself in the process.

"We could beat the sharks to death and then use them to fry the laser net?" Yumichika offered. He didn't seem happy. Possibly it was the effect of the water on his eyebrows.

"Naah." Ikkaku felt himself smirking. "I've got a better idea. See, if we both hit here -- back, fish, back! -- and hit together . . ."

* * *

Hitsugaya did not cower, but he did take a few prudent steps back as Kurotsuchi screamed at the screen. "What do you mean they built the shark pool next to the archives? Well, get someone down there now! NOW!"

* * *

Nanao stepped in and swerved round another nerve strike from Nemu, bringing the side of her hand round into the small of Nemu's back. Nemu rolled with the blow, losing a strip of cloth from her obi, and came up on one knee, slamming her fingers into the side of Nanao's thigh. Nanao managed to pivot, but couldn't avoid the full force of the hit, and swung her hip to settle her injured leg behind her, folding her arms in front to catch Nemu's next blow.

There was a groaning creak from the wall.

Both women flicked a rapid glance sideways to look at it, unwilling to take their attention from each other for more than a moment.

Another creak. Drops of water sprayed out from a crack between two ranks of shelves, spattering across the floor between the women.

Nemu gasped. "The shark pool!"

Nanao thought about the potential advantage of choosing this moment to make her exit, but the possibility didn't stand a chance against the very real probability of all the archive, all these documents, _all this information _getting waterlogged and destroyed. "We need to block it!"

Nemu nodded, once. She pointed towards a table that was still intact. "Please take the other side, Vice-Captain."

Nanao ran to the far side of the table, and hoisted it to her shoulder, as Nemu did the same thing on the other side. She and Nemu glanced at each other to get the timing, nodded, and then ran three steps forward before leaping into the air. They caught themselves on the bookcases on either side of the crack, and swung the table into position, bracing it against the shelves.

There was a heavy booming on the far side of the wall.

* * *

"Shit," Ikkaku gurgled, coming up for air, "it must be braced."

"Again," Yumichika recommended.

They sank beneath the water once more. The sharks were avoiding them by now.

* * *

"I'll deal with the ones in the shark pool, Kurotsuchi-taichou," Hitsugaya said quickly. "Can you deal with the leak on the archive side?"

"Of course," Kurotsuchi grunted, striding to the door. He grabbed a cowering minion. "You! Show Hitsugaya-taichou to the shark pool! Now!"

* * *

Nanao looked round for anything that would be useful for stuffing in cracks. Anything except books. Useless. "Is help coming?"

"Yes, but I do not think we have the time to wait for it."

She restrained her temper. Displays of annoyance were best saved for her own Captain. "Standard procedures for archive integrity?"

Nemu shook her head and frowned. "I do not know who put the shark pool there, but there is no kidou I know that would work against floodwater --"

Nanao flicked through her mental index. No way of shielding the wall from the far side, no way of blocking the crack if it got much further, she could use kidou to reinforce the table but that wouldn't help if the crack got much larger --

There was the sound of a chunk of wall breaking loose. The table creaked and fell to the floor with a boom. Water came gouting out in a stream as thick as a man's arm.

Nanao smiled. An opening. "Do you know any kidou?" she asked Nemu.

* * *

"We got something that time. Right, try it again --"

* * *

Hitsugaya followed his babbling guide, rushing through the narrow corridors, and made a mental note to never, never, never suggest to Rangiku that spying on Twelfth Division would be a good idea.

* * *

"None applicable in this case," Nemu replied. "Please help me with the table."

"Just a moment," Nanao said, and leaped back up to the shelf again. Yes, the opening was within reach. "Lord and Master," she started, stumbling as quickly as she could through the full protocol. This was going to need all the energy she could control. "O mask of flesh and blood -- o entire universe -- o beating of wings -- o that one who bears the name of human! Truth and temperance -- from beyond these walls built from pure dreams and without sins, you only ever raise your claws except when purely necessary --"

"Ise-fukutaichou!" Nemu shouted as the crack in the wall widened again.

"Thirty-third Hado technique!" Nanao called, as she thrust her arm into the crack in the wall and let the energy come boiling out. "Soukatsui, wall of flames!"

Steam gushed out around her.

* * *

"What the _fuck_--"

Ikkaku and Yumichika staged a temporary retreat towards the surface of the pool of water, competing with the sharks to escape from the sudden burst of flame.

* * *

Hitsugaya could identify the shark pool fairly easily, but he didn't remember the gouts of steam from when he'd been watching it through the viewscreen. First things first. He turned to his guide. "Shut the lasers off!"

"But, sir --"

Hitsugaya let his reiatsu rise. "Shut them off _now_ so I can reach the pool."

"Sir!" the guide squawked, and ran across to hit some inconspicuous switches in the wall.

Hitsugaya rushed forward. Ikkaku and Yumichika from the Eleventh Division were struggling with the sharks in a steaming, slowly sinking pool of water. "Out of there, now!" he shouted.

The two thugs seemed to have at least some intelligence. They were scrambling out before he could finish the sentence.

He swung his blade round, pointing it downwards, and felt it stir coldly in the back of his consciousness, flexing its coils. "Hyourinmaru!" he called. "Sit in the frozen sky!"

Ice gushed out and down.

* * *

The flow had paused for a moment, but now regained full force as Nanao dropped down from her perch. Her clothing clung wetly to her body, and her glasses were misty with steam. She stepped back, glancing to Nemu, who nodded to the table again.

"Stand back!" came a call from the doorway.

Nanao flicked a glance across. It was Kurotsuchi-taichou himself. She took several steps back, then, on consideration, a few steps more, drifting over to where her book lay abandoned, conscious of Nemu's shifting of attention from herself to her Captain.

Kurotsuchi-taichou pointed both hands at the gouting crack in the wall, and called out a kidou that Nanao didn't recognise, moving his hands in a complicated pattern. She could feel the energy shifting around him, though; shifting, fluxing, then thrust forth, as the light solidified round the water and held it in place -- oh, it was an alternate form of the sixty-first kidou, the Brilliant Prison of Six Staves, how interesting . . .

The room fell silent.

Tucking her own book under her arm, she stepped forward and gave a full bow to Kurotsuchi-taichou. "Sir."

He turned to look at her, mouth twisting into a thin line. "Ise-fukutaichou? Unfortunate that you should have been involved in this, most grateful for your assistance -- have you anything to report, Nemu?" he added towards his daughter.

Nemu visibly composed herself, bowing to her father. "Ise-fukutaichou was assisting me in researching a matter which I would like to discuss with you, Kurotsuchi-taichou, but otherwise she has no connection with what was going on."

Nanao nodded. "Indeed. If you will excuse me, sir, I will beg your indulgence and return to my own Division's business."

"Oh, go, go . . ." He waved a hand in the direction of the exit. "My regards to Kyouraku and all that. I'll be seeing to matters here."

With a last nod to Nemu -- and what was behind those dark eyes? Complicity? Acceptance? A threat? A promise -- Nanao strode briskly and wetly out through the door, leaving a trail of soggy footprints behind her.

* * *

"We were looking for the men's room," Ikkaku said promptly, before Hitsugaya could even start questioning him.

Hitsugaya frowned. Letting them go would probably remove any goodwill that Kurotsuchi had towards him, but did he really want it at that price? He pointedly turned his back on the two of them to look at the cowering guide. "How long before Kurotsuchi-taichou gets up here?"

The sound of breaking windows -- and incidental firetraps -- behind him was all that he needed to hear.

* * *

Ise Nanao sat at her desk, copying out facts and figures. While her memory was not perfect, it was extremely good. The original documentation would of course have been preferable, but this would do for the moment.

Doubtless Kyouraku-taichou would soon return. He had been unreasonably concerned about a few minor steam injuries, but fortunately she had been able to put him off with promises of a full report. He'd gone to talk to Ukitake-taichou instead. This would probably involve alcohol, but at least it didn't involve him drinking alcohol next to her while she was trying to write.

It had really been a most informative day.


	5. Chapter Five

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER FIVE**

This time Renji had been provided with a gigai.

He was trying to get over the subtle but definite impression that it was too small for him. Particularly in certain areas. Or perhaps it was just the way that these modern clothes were cut. Yeah. Nothing like proper fundoshi and hakama.

Anyhow. Earth, check. Living people, check. Early morning, check. Lots of people running around, check. Rapid duck into corner shop to avoid that Ichigo kid and associated awkward explanations, check.

Discovery that he had not been issued any money with which he could buy drinks, check. And what was this shit about official drinking age?

Rapid return to street, check.

"Oooooh!" squealed an unhelpfully familiar voice from across the street. "It's Renji-kun!"

Rapid collision with flowing walnut-orange hair and generously proportioned bosom, check. And dragon -- no, wait, another schoolgirl -- giving him a disapproving stare.

Clearly it was going to be one of those days.

* * *

Rukia settled the folds of her clothing properly and tried to raise the nerve to knock on Ukitake-taichou's door.

It shouldn't be that hard. She'd done it often enough in the past.

_(But of course in the past she hadn't committed a major crime and been sentenced to death and most inconsiderately caused great inconvenience to everyone she knew and cared about . . .)_

This was ridiculous. She was a Kuchiki. More to the point, she was a shinigami. There was nothing here to be afraid of.

_(And it was pure coincidence that she had decided to leave it till the next morning before returning to duty in order to make sure that everything was in order and that she didn't somehow turn up halfway through the day to find out that she wasn't needed any more and . . .)_

She set her teeth and knocked. Once.

"Come in!" Ukitake-taichou called cheerfully.

She slid the door open nervously. The Captain was seated at his favourite table, nursing a cup of tea. He looked up at her with a smile. "Ah, Kuchiki. Good to have you back. I'm afraid we frankly can't spare you for duty in the living world at the moment, we're rather too busy here, but right now --"

She was backed into by two people simultaneously, and spun, one hand dropping to her sword hilt, to find that she was being run over by the Combined Third Seat Assault Force, both of whom were simultaneously making excuses and explaining that it wasn't their fault, with Kyouraku-taichou directly behind them and less than his usual beaming self.

Clearly it was going to be one of those days.

"Excuse me just one minute," said Kyouraku-taichou, taking a Third Seat by the shoulder with each hand and diverting them out of the door behind him. "And I'm sorry, Rukia-chan, but I need to speak to your Captain just a moment. Don't go away. In fact, definitely don't go away." He tousled her hair while somehow moving her out through the door as well. "This won't take long," he said briskly, and closed the door behind him.

"He's gone insane," Kotetsu Kiyone declared vengefully, adjusting her collar. "We need to protect the Captain from this maniac."

"Absolutely," stated Kotsubaki Sentarou, rolling his shoulders. "We cannot allow the Captain to be stressed like this."

Rukia weighed possibilities against disasters. "You could distract him with wine," she offered sweetly, "if you were to fetch some of the Captain's private stock from the cellar."

They both looked at her.

"Brilliant!" Kotetsu Kiyone glowed with enthusiasm. "You stay here, Sentarou, while I --"

"No, no," Kotsubaki Sentarou countered, already jockeying for position and preparing to take off from a standing start. "You wait here while I --"

An instant later, Rukia was alone save for the sound of pounding feet.

It did not once cross her mind to consider listening at the door, and she was extremely proud of this. No, she would merely wait out here in the corridor quietly and amuse herself by listening to the sounds of 13th Division life and --

"You want me to _what_!" Ukitake-taichou shouted.

Her hand was already on the doorhandle before common sense reasserted itself. Just because her Captain was shouting did not make it an emergency. Kyouraku-taichou was replying, and no doubt the discussion would calm down in just a moment --

A loud crash.

With only the barest commendation of her soul to ancestors (real and adoptive), superiors, and gods, Rukia slid the door back and peered in.

Both the Captains were seated. A vase was shattered on the floor near Kyouraku-taichou.

"Later, Kuchiki," Ukitake-taichou snapped, without taking his eyes off the other man.

Rukia slid the door shut. Possibly the vase had just fallen, after all, and it had merely been an accident --

"It is utterly out of the question," her Captain growled in tones that came quite clearly through the door.

Perhaps she should go elsewhere in order to avoid temptation. But if she did, then someone else might come along, and walk in on the two Captains arguing, and that would be a serious lack of propriety, not to mention a risk of serious bodily harm for the person involved.

Kyouraku-taichou's voice was a gentle, soothing murmur in the background. She couldn't make out what he was saying.

There was another loud thud.

Did her duty as a shinigami involve this? She put her hand on the door-handle again, and felt it shift under her weight.

"Not now!" both men called out together.

Fine. That was clear enough. She would simply stand here, and listen to . . .

. . . two more crashes . . .

. . . some language which she would never have expected to hear from Ukitake-taichou. Shiba Kaien, yes, but really, Ukitake-taichou, she was shocked, not that the words were actually _new_ to her, but even so . . .

. . .another thump . . .

. . . a silence which was in many ways more disturbing than the previous noises . . .

. . . some pained coughing, and that nearly did bring her running in, but she restrained herself just in time . . .

. . . and finally her Captain's voice. "Kuchiki!"

"Sir!" she said briskly, sliding the door back, and seeing with relief that nobody had been strangled and the two Captains were seated just as they had been. (And that a certain amount of debris seemed to have been hastily swept into a corner, and that several ornamental items were no longer in their customary positions, but it would have been impolitic to look too obviously, so she didn't.)

Ukitake-taichou coughed, but it was an official cough, not a serious one, so she restrained herself from looking concerned. "Kuchiki. I am in fact assigning you to the world of the living." He held up a hand to stop the questions she hadn't even managed to formulate. "You are to locate and question Urahara Kisuke. We --" He cast a cold glance at Kyouraku-taichou, who was slouching in his chair and staring vaguely at nothing in particular, "believe that he may know something about the problem which you and Abarai-fukutaichou were investigating. This is a matter of urgency."

It wasn't that she objected to assignment to the mortal world, but -- "Sir, why me?" _What if I fail? What if I fail all over again . . ._

Her Captain sighed. "Because, Kuchiki Rukia, Urahara Kisuke currently owes you a debt, which makes you one of the very few people who may be able to get answers out of him. And at the moment, we badly need those answers." He gave Kyouraku-taichou another cold look, then turned back to her again. "You will be leaving immediately. Are you capable?"

Rukia swallowed. "With respect, sir, if Abarai-fukutaichou could cooperate on this -- we were looking into the matter together earlier, after all."

Ukitake-taichou's face lightened briefly. "I understand he's already been assigned there. You'll probably be able to catch up with him."

_I'm going to kill the bastard,_ Rukia vowed to herself. "Of course, sir," she said. "Ready at your command."

"Good luck, Rukia-chan," Kyouraku-taichou commented. He tilted his hat to look sideways at her. "Be careful."

She bowed politely to him, waited for Ukitake-taichou to rise, and followed her Captain out of the room.

* * *

Ishida had walked (inconspicuously, he flattered himself) past the shop three times now, but had still not quite mustered up the decision to enter. It wasn't as if he was a stranger there, after all; they'd know him from when he and Ichigo and the others had all gone through the Gate together. They were aware of what he was.

If only he was quite sure about what _they_ were.

And there was, of course, the utterly irrevocable fact that walking through that door and asking a shinigami (for really, what else could Urahara Kisuke be?) for help would be a surender of the worst and the most disgusting kind. It was so bitter a thing that he could scarcely swallow it.

But if there was anyone out there who might know how he could regain his powers, then it was probably this man.

What would his grandfather have wanted? Perhaps, just perhaps, he would have wanted Ishida to find a way to keep on going and to protect people -- he need not be precise to himself about which people -- from the Hollows, and from those shinigami who had chosen to ally themselves with the creatures. Perhaps he would have understood this. Perhaps he could forgive Ishida better than Ishida could ever forgive himself.

Ishida walked up to the door and knocked.

The little girl with the long droopy tendrils of fringe put aside her broom and opened the door, looking up at him. "You should have come in sooner," she said. "Your tea's gone cold."

* * *

"No," Renji lied. "Nothing serious. Just in the area to check up a few things."

The situation hadn't improved. Kurosaki Ichigo had showed up and was giving his customary impression of a surly punk. And while Renji wouldn't have minded sitting down with the two of them to give them some idea of what was going on -- hell, the Orihime chick was a healer, she might even have something useful to contribute -- he didn't want to start a panic or get them into danger. With any luck Aizen wasn't going to send any of his forces to waste time and effort here. Better to keep them out of things for the moment.

And besides, a treacherous thought at the back of his mind pointed out, getting Ichigo involved in it would somehow (however impossible it might seem) get Rukia involved in all of it, and that was just plain not going to happen. No. No way. Absolutely not. Not in a fucking million years. Therefore no involvement for Ichigo, sorry, hard luck, go do your lessons like a good schoolboy and stay out of the way.

"Are you sure you're fully healed?" Inoue Orihime asked, giving him the sort of doe-eyed look that he didn't mind seeing in a girl from time to time. She was certainly a pretty thing, and if Ichigo wasn't staking a claim then the boy had even less sense than he thought. "You looked so seriously hurt earlier . . ."

Renji gave her soft little hand a pat. "Don't you worry about me, honey. I'm fine. Tough types like me," and he gave Ichigo a smug look, "heal fast."

Ichigo stared over Renji's shoulder. "And idiots who don't know how to fight have to heal fast because they keep on getting into moronic brawls."

Renji made a grab for Ichigo. "Oi, you --"

Ichigo dodged and kicked. Renji pounced. The situation went downhill from there.

* * *

Ishida sipped his tea. It had indeed gone cold. "Thank you very much for receiving me, Urahara-san," he started politely.

"No problem at all!" The shopkeeper waved his fan around. "If it's Yoruichi you're here to see, I'm afraid she's asleep at the moment, but I'll be glad to wake her up and tell her you're here --"

"Actually, it's you I'd like to speak to, if it wouldn't be an inconvenience." Ishida put his cup down.

Urahara Kisuke's eyes narrowed under the shadows of his hat. In the background, the little girl pushed her broom around and transferred dust from one area of the floor to another. "Now how can I be of service to a fine customer like yourself?"

The words knotted themselves in Ishida's mouth. Now that he had come to the point, he could not, _could_ not confess his incapacity in front of this man. _Or what if he already sees it? What if he can tell that I am powerless?_ "I -- that is, I have a problem --" he began.

The shop doorbell cut him off. He heard the girl scamper across and the creak of the door swinging open.

A foreign, hostile reiatsu swelled behind him like fire struck by a draught, and he swivelled round in shock. The shinigami Captain -- no, not a Captain any longer -- the shinigami Tousen Kaname stood there, framed by the doorway, gaze set on Urahara.

* * *

Rukia frowned as she settled the folds of her school uniform. It was, perhaps, a question of priorities. Should she locate Renji first, or go directly to Urahara? And should she attempt to avoid Ichigo in the process, or not?

She hadn't received any direct orders about Ichigo. Possibly Ukitake-taichou would have given her some if he'd had time to think about it. (And what exactly was going on there, anyhow? It was painfully obvious that Kyouraku-taichou was pushing him into something, and bearing in mind what her elder brother had said about watching for odd behaviour on her Captain's part, there was frankly enough odd behaviour around to keep her busy for the next few years.)

On the one hand, it would be useful to have Ichigo's backup, and she really should make sure that _someone_ in the area knew that there might be trouble. On the other hand, it'd probably take ages to explain it all to him. Even if she drew diagrams.

She resolved to deal with Urahara first and catch up with Renji and Ichigo later. After all, she consoled herself, they were probably capable of looking after themselves if anything did happen. Probably. Idiots that they were.

She began trotting through the streets towards Urahara Kisuke's shop.

* * *

Tousen Kaname was wearing a different outfit to the Captain's coat and shinigami clothing that Ishida had seen him in earlier. His high-collared white robe was sleeveless, and his visorlike eyepiece was somehow altered. There was something changed about his posture, too; he stood with a more careful, precise control, rather than his previous easy competence, as though he was constantly leashing back an inner fury.

The words _ground zero_ flickered through Ishida's mind as he glanced from Tousen to Urahara. He might be powerless, but he could feel the reiatsu surging round the two of them like growing thunderheads. Even the little girl seemed to feel it, flinching back nervously against the wall.

_And how long before the rest of the town starts to feel it, too . . ._

"Urahara," Tousen said, and there was an unsettling under-harmonic to his voice. "Urahara Kisuke. I hope that I am not disturbing you."

"Not at all," Urahara replied politely. He glanced sideways to Ishida, and made a small movement with his fingers, a flick of his eyes; _move, sideways, out of the line of fire._

Ishida kept his breathing calm, his own spiritual force -- such as it was -- within bounds, and began to edge to one side, towards the wall of the room.

Tousen turned to look at him for a moment, as though the movement had caught his attention, but he did not seem to fully _register_ Ishida. It was as though he was reacting to the movement of a fly or an insect, something that small and inconsequential. His eyeless stare returned to Urahara. "I have a problem and would appreciate your assistance."

"In what way?" Urahara asked, casually picking up his cane and resting it across his knees. "I had thought that you had thrown in your lot with Aizen Sousuke."

"I have every confidence in Aizen-sama," Tousen stated, voice placid and uninflected. "Through his leadership we shall achieve true justice."

"Then . . ." Urahara let the sentence trail away, tilting his head curiously.

"There have been certain changes lately," Tousen said. His tone did not change. "I have -- not been myself. I am uncertain about Aizen-sama's attitude to this, and thought to consult with you, since you are independent of the Gotei 13 now."

Ishida shifted the last inch that would take him up against the wall, small comfort as it was. There was something profoundly _wrong_ about Tousen's calmness and the contradictions in his speech.

"Is Aizen aware that you are here?" Urahara's question was casually put, as though it was unimportant.

Tousen shook his head. The motion took slightly too long. "No. Aizen-sama would have no need to know that I am here. Aizen-sama is aware of all things. His justice is absolute."

"Then why don't you tell me what the problem is, Tousen-taichou." Urahara lowered his voice to a confiding, gentle tone. "I'll just send the servants to go and fetch us some tea, and you can sit down and we'll talk about it. I'll be glad to help . . ."

Tousen seemed to relax for a moment, but then his whole body twitched in a shudder that made Ishida wish he was several paces nearer to the door. "I -- no. You're trying to trick me," he said, voice still flat. "You're going to betray me. I can't trust you."

Urahara's hands tightened on his cane, but he remained seated, as though aware that the slightest movement on his part would trigger something in his unwanted guest. "Tousen-taichou, you are overwrought." His voice practically oozed honey. "I'm just a shopkeeper now, and all I want to do is to give you what you need . . ."

Tousen moved -- one of those _flash steps_, an adjustment of position so fast that Ishida could not follow it with his eyes -- and he was holding the little girl's collar, dangling her off the ground. "Perhaps I need to give you reason to help me," he stated.

Ishida was about to move, to say something, because however powerless he was, he could _not_ let that girl be hurt, but Urahara flung out one hand towards him, and he felt reiatsu hovering round him in a kidou that would pin him against the wall and silence him.

"Put her down," Urahara said, an edge in his voice, "or we will all regret it, Tousen Kaname."

"Do you think that I --" Tousen began.

The little girl wriggled. "Attack mode implemented," she murmured sweetly, and twisted in Tousen's grasp, slamming into him in a blow that knocked the shinigami against the wall and that tore her collar free. She skipped away from him as he caught his balance, running back to nestle against Urahara's knee and tilt her head innocently.

The reiatsu pinning Ishida in place vanished. He edged rapidly along the wall, unwilling to step away from it, till he was safely behind the meridian of Urahara's presence. He could hear shouts from elsewhere in the shop and running footsteps.

"I." Tousen raised one hand to his face. His dark flesh seemed to shift as though the bones of his hand and wrist were rippling under the skin. He gasped, struggling for breath, then said, still formal, "I cannot control -- you are -- I am here because --" His reiatsu swelled like a pestilence. "I came here because -- Aizen-sama -- you have betrayed me, you have betrayed Aizen-sama . . ." His robe swelled and swung as if something was moving under it, as if his body was distorting itself. "I will have --"

"Sing, Benihime!" Urahara exclaimed, coming to his feet as he drew his blade.

"I will have justice," Tousen said in a voice which cut through the air, and the air around him exploded in a tornado of form and shape and madness, as Ishida threw himself to the ground.

* * *

Across the town they heard the sound of it, the spiritual thunder on the air: and they came running, Rukia and Renji and Ichigo and Orihime, towards the cloud of smoke that was already rising, towards the sound of battle.


	6. Chapter Six

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER SIX**

The concussion of forces threw Ishida into a long tumble, tossing him the length of the room. He had enough sense left to land on his shoulder and roll, but he was shaking his head as he came up on one knee, trying to orient himself.

There was madness in the centre of the room. It didn't even _look_ like Tousen Kaname any longer. The person -- the thing -- it was a shifting, pullulating fog of matter at the centre of the room, and the sunlight (where had the roof gone? Oh dear, the roof wasn't there any longer) shone down on it far too clearly, making it an offence to the eyes.

A crimson shield shimmered in the air between it and Urahara Kisuke, following the line that his sword had drawn. It was flaking away at the edges.

_If I had a bow and arrows,_ Ishida thought as he looked for a place to hide. All he was at the moment was a potential hostage or casualty. _If I had my powers again, just for a moment --_

Dark tentacles whipped out from the heaving mass and slashed against Urahara's shield, driving him a step back.

"Tousen!" Urahara called, pitching his voice to carry. The little girl huddled behind him, head tilted as she watched. "Tousen Kaname! Can you hear me?"

A mouth formed on the side of the creature, and Tousen's features seemed to swim to the surface, moulding themselves there in clay, the eyes wide and blank. "Urahara Kisuke. You must -- there is something wrong with me, I need help." The voice broke off, and the lips moved dumbly for a moment, then began to speak again as though they had not stopped. "-- Aizen-sama but in this case I am uncertain."

"That's right," Urahara said encouragingly. "That's right. Come on, Tousen, Tousen Kaname, come up out of there. I'm talking to Tousen." He kept his blade raised, and the shield shimmered in front of him like a wing of blood. "Tousen Kaname. Tousen Kaname came here to see me. Can you remember that, Tousen?"

Ishida was reassured for a moment, but then he edged a step further to one side and he saw the tension in Urahara's eyes. _He's not sure this is going to work. What does he know about this, anyhow?_

The creature's boundaries fluxed uncomfortably. Tousen's face seemed to emerge a little more distinctly, lying on top of the creature like a Hollow's mask.

Ishida wished he hadn't thought of that.

His glasses were dusty. He swiped at them with a corner of his shirt, and realised that ash and dust was still drifting down from where the roof had been. There had been so much noise, he hadn't noticed it being blown away. _And how were they going to explain this to all the normal people around? Gas explosion?_

"Urahara," the creature that had been Tousen Kaname decided, and there was a dreadful finality in its voice as the tentacles lashed out again. A thick crack threaded down the shield, and Urahara hissed between his teeth as he slid several paces back across the floor. "Deceiver. Traitor. This is _your_ fault."

More dust came drifting down in choking clouds. Ishida coughed, then kicked out as a brawny arm grabbed him and hauled him to one side. "What --"

"Stop struggling," the burly assistant -- Tessai, that was his name -- muttered. "This is going to get nasty."

Ishida didn't need to be told that. "Let me go! I can --" _help,_ he was about to say, because it had been reflex for so much of his life to be able to help, and he still kept on forgetting that he couldn't.

"Don't be stupid, respected customer," Tessai snarled. Ishida noticed that he'd got the small girl by the scruff of her neck in the other hand. "I need to get you two both further away. How's the manager supposed to fight with you so close?"

Ishida shut his mouth tightly and nodded, feeling his teeth grate together.

Urahara brought his blade round in a wide sweeping cut, and sliced the ground three times, then backed half a step and paused, as though daring the creature to attack.

"Oh," the little boy said, appearing from nowhere in particular and peering round Tessai's muscular thigh. "This is going to be good."

"No!" Tessai groaned. "Not that --"

The creature pounced, unspecified limbs half-hidden in the mass of dust hunching and sending it leaping forward like a cat. It landed almost on top of Urahara, tendrils swinging.

Urahara thrust downwards with his zanpakutou, a scarlet plume rising again, and the two of them vanished into the earth together.

"My training ground!" Tessai wailed.

"What is going on?" spat an angry female voice from behind them.

Tessai spun round, Ishida and the girl dangling in his arms. Shihouin Yoruichi had apparently been disturbed mid-bath, for she was clutching a towel around her, and was otherwise naked, her hair tumbling round her shoulders, her supple flesh all beaded with sweat . . .

Ishida swallowed and tried not to think about it.

"All this noise," Yoruichi growled. "All this destruction. Kisuke getting into fights without me. Someone. _Explain._"

"Tousen Kaname showed up," Ishida babbled quickly, "and had some sort of seizure and turned into a weird Hollow thing and now Urahara-san's fighting him."

"What?" Yoruichi's eyes widened, then slitted. "Tessai. Keep these three and anyone else who shows up out of it. This order is not to be countermanded. Understood?"

Tessai nodded with a quick military formality. "Yes, ma'am."

Yoruichi nodded. With a quick turn and pivot that somehow knotted the towel around her, she dived into the hole after Urahara.

* * *

Ichigo turned the corner into the lane that led to Urahara's shop. He was conscious of Renji just behind him, and Orihime trailing some way back (_and that's probably a good thing,_ a part of his mind pointed out, _as it'll keep her out of the action._)

Then Rukia turned the corner at the other end of the lane, running as fast as he was.

It was ridiculous, ridiculous how many thoughts could be crammed into a single moment's shock. The first one was _It's her!_ and the second one was also _It's her!_ and the third was _Renji didn't say she was back too,_ and the fourth was _So what am I supposed to do now, go back to having her sleeping in my closet?_ and the fifth, competing for space with all the rest, was _It's her!_ and at that point his brain just gave up and concentrated on important things like the crashes and thuds and plumes of smoke and reiatsu disturbance that even he could sense coming from inside Urahara's compound.

Tessai stepped into the open door of the shop. He was dangling a shaken-looking Ishida Uryuu under one arm, and the shop's little girl from the other hand. "Excuse me, honoured customers," he said flatly, "but you cannot enter."

"Don't give me that shit," Renji said, catching up with Ichigo and pointing a finger at the big man. "There's clearly something going on in there --"

"Kuchiki-san! How wonderful to see you again!" Orihime declared between gasps for air.

"-- and we're not going to stand out here in the street," Renji finished.

"Sadly you are," Tessai said. "Can I offer you tea? On the house, of course?"

"Oi. Let us in, we want to help," Ichigo tried. "It'd be pretty fucking stupid to keep us out here --"

There was a weird gargling scream from inside the compound.

Ichigo swallowed. "Please?" he added.

Tessai glanced back over his shoulder. At that moment, Renji and Ichigo caught each other's eyes, nodded, and charged. Ichigo went high, Renji went low, and the two of them thrust their way past Tessai, darting into the room beyond.

Ichigo was fairly sure he could hear Rukia shouting at the two of them. _Back to normal,_ he thought, and found himself grinning.

They skidded to a halt at the edge of a chasm. Down below, in what looked like the underground training area, Urahara was fighting something amorphous and darkly horrible, while Yoruichi skidded round it almost too fast for his eye to follow, flashing quick blows that laid it open and left it bleeding.

"Fuck," Renji said, sword loose in his hand. "That's not a normal Hollow."

Ichigo frowned. "Look, if they haven't already taken it out, then it must be something high up on the scale. Suppose we both attack from above while they're keeping it busy . . ."

"You gentlemen will stand down _now_," Tessai growled from behind them. There was a thump, as of someone dropping human bodies to the ground so that he could have his hands free, and an aggrieved squawk. "Yoruichi-dono has instructed that nobody interrupt. There is a danger --" He broke off. "I cannot let you interfere."

"Shut it." Renji pointed his blade at Tessai. "I am not standing here while that thing gets away."

"Hold it." Rukia's voice was as cold as ice. "Renji -- sorry, Abarai-fukutaichou -- if that thing down there is infectious in the same way as the one that got Rikichi, then I can see why Shihouin Yoruichi doesn't want us getting near it. And how would you feel if one of us cut into a fight of _yours_?"

Renji glared at her. "That's not the point."

"Infectious how?" Ichigo asked, frowning.

"We don't know," Rukia cut across Renji's objection. "That's why I'm saying that if the manager of this esteemed establishment knows how to handle it, and Shihouin Yoruichi agrees with him, then perhaps we should stand back and let them do it."

"That sounds very sensible," Orihime put in from the doorway. "Please won't you two wait like Tessai-san wants?"

Ichigo and Renji exchanged glances, then both sighed and turned their attention to the fight below.

The creature seemed to be focusing on Yoruichi now. She struck a blow that seemed to detonate something inside it, spilling organs and seething fluid out onto the rocky terrain in a huge gout of energy that left a crater in the earth under it. It roared and struck at her, but in that moment Urahara darted round behind it, faster than he had done previously, and his zanpakutou cleaved through the mask that swam in its flesh.

There was a sound like thunder, and the whole building shook.

Dust slowly cleared. Below, Urahara and Yoruichi stood over the body of Tousen Kaname.

"Okay," Ichigo began, "now you can't object to --"

Tessai's hand closed over his shoulder. "Not until Yoruichi-dono _says_," he growled.

Urahara went on his knees next to the fallen man, raising him against his chest.

Tousen seemed to be trying to say something. For a moment, his hand moved, and then it fell back to the ground again, and he was still.

Urahara laid the other man back in the dust. He turned to say something to Yoruichi, but she had turned away to stare at the horizon, separate, untouchable.

* * *

The discussion was held in a back room of the shop that still had a roof and that wasn't full of dust. As it was, the room was uncomfortably full, and Tessai had to place his feet carefully while bringing in the tea-tray to avoid stepping on anyone.

Yoruichi had resumed her feline form. She sat near Urahara and groomed herself pointedly.

This was not the atmosphere that Rukia had wanted for an in-depth interrogation and playing on any and all debts that Urahara Kisuke owed her. She decided to fade into the background and see if he'd let out anything useful.

"I'm terribly sorry if we came at a bad moment," Orihime started. "We could always come back later if we're bothering you."

There were smothered mutters and gulping of tea from the directions of Renji and Ichigo.

"Not at all," Urahara said politely, waving his fan. "I'm sorry that you were so inconvenienced."

"What did you really tell that policeman?" Ishida asked in tones of fascinated horror.

"The usual." Urahara sipped his tea. "Tragic explosion of wiring installed by previous owner, combined with selective memory modification. It works wonders. Trust me, the tendency to drool doesn't last long at all."

"That was Tousen," Renji said slowly. "Tousen-taichou as was. Urahara-san, I regret having to ask you this question --"

_A hopeless lie,_ Rukia thought. _You don't regret it at all and you don't even look sorry._

"-- but would this have anything to do with weird mutated Hollows that are affecting shinigami and making them turn into Hollows themselves?" Renji finished.

Urahara gave him a narrow-eyed look from under the shadows of his hat. "That's an awfully pointed question, Abarai-fukutaichou."

Renji stared at him. "Well, yeah. So?"

Urahara snapped his fan together and pointed it at Renji. "Could you please give me the details about the problem you've got?"

Renji frowned, then nodded. "Okay. We've had at least one case so far where a shinigami fought a Hollow and then came back affected and looking like a Hollow. Unohana-taichou's treating it like an illness and having everyone inspected. I'm not going to argue with her."

Rukia stared into her cup. _Would it have been different if someone had checked your wife sooner, Kaien-fukutaichou? If someone had realised something was wrong with her? But that was possession, not an illness -- even so, if it could have been different . . ._

She raised her head. "If you feel that you owe us anything, Urahara-san -- if you feel that you owe _me_ anything -- then I must ask you to help us."

"Ah." Urahara gestured with his fan again. "Well, while --"

"Tell them," Yoruichi growled, "or I will."

Urahara looked down at the cat. The brim of his hat hid his eyes.

Yoruichi looked up at him, and reached out a delicate paw to rest it on his knee. "I left with you because I disagreed with the Council's decision, Urahara Kisuke. This does not mean that I ever acknowledged you as my master. If you do not tell them now, then I shall."

"This is not a good idea." Urahara spoke as if the two of them were alone in the room. "We will all regret this."

The cat brought her paw back and licked it smoothly. "Of course we will. But we will regret the alternatives more." She leapt into his lap. "You tell them. You've always been good at explaining things."

Urahara took a deep breath and drank some more of his tea. "Very well." He looked up again, and this time there was a much more sinister air to the way that his hat shadowed his face, a much more lethal casualness to his posture. "It goes like this --"

"More tea, anyone?" Tessai asked from the doorway.

Urahara flicked a smooth gesture, twisting his fingers as he did so. The door slammed shut.

"It goes like this." He petted Yoruichi with his free hand, but did not look down at her. "A while ago, as some of you may already be aware, I used to be Captain of Twelfth Division. No, save the questions for later. While I was Captain, I inaugurated a project that was supposed to modify the nature of Hollows. Through the use of kidou, technology, reiatsu, alchemy, and several other things which I haven't got time to go into, we created an artifact that we called the Hougyouku."

Ichigo raised a hand. "Wait. _That_ thing? The one you stuck in Rukia?"

"The very same," Urahara said calmly. "The project went quite well at first. We began to, if you like, edit out some of what makes a Hollow a Hollow, trying to reduce it back to a normal soul. We also started to induce some of the more useful potential traits of Hollows into some of our volunteers. We were using mod souls at first, but they became sentient and so that was not feasible."

_And was that anything to do with why Project Spearhead was dropped?_ Rukia wanted to ask, but she had enough sense to keep her mouth shut.

Urahara took a deep breath. "And then -- at first we thought it was controllable. We took precautions, set up quarantines, limited our experiments. Within a few days it became obvious that those shinigami who had attempted cross-grafts of Hollow abilities were beginning to evince the full traits of Hollow pathology. The aetiology was complete. We were forced to order full purification." His words are quicker now, the scientific terminology clipped and precise. "We also disposed of all Hollow specimens. Over the next few days we had more victims. Shinigami who had been involved in the original experiments, shinigami who had fought the infected members of my Division, shinigami whose reiatsu had mingled with infected members while trying to _heal_ them. This was not an airborn contagion. It was carried via reiatsu. Naturally, the experiment was shut down."

Renji let out a long whistle between his teeth. "I don't believe it. I mean, something like that would have been a public disaster --"

"Believe it," Yoruichi cut in. "It was an experiment mostly inside Twelfth in any case. There were some kidou experts from other Divisions, and of course the healers from Fourth, but outside that . . . no, it was easy enough to kill the experiment and seal the records."

"Unohana-taichou was in charge of Fourth at that point," Rukia put in. "That would explain why she's so . . . um, definite about all this."

"Of course it would." Urahara frowned. "Unohana Retsu is many things, but stupid has never been one of them."

There was a scratching noise from Orihime's corner. Heads turned to see her enthusiastically scribbling Urahara's words down.

Ishida sighed. "Inoue-san, are you sure you should be taking notes?"

Orihime frowned at him. "You aren't listening, Ishida-kun. Urahara-san just said that this affects healers if they try to heal people who've got it. I'm going to ask him to show me how you tell if someone's got it just as soon as he finishes." She smiled happily at Urahara. "Please go on."

Urahara coughed. "Well, there really isn't that much more to say. I sealed the Hougyouku, of course, and left Soul Society under what might be described as something of a cloud . . ."

"That's not fair!" Ishida interrupted. "They make you leave for something that wasn't your intention, and they let someone like Kurotsuchi Mayuri stay when he, he . . ." He choked on his own indignation. "It's not fair," he repeated angrily.

"No. It isn't, is it." Urahara poured more tea for himself. "But when you think about it, Mayuri-kun doesn't generally get _shinigami_ killed. And whatever else you may say about him, he has yet to unleash a plague that could have destroyed the whole of Seireitai. Once something like this starts spreading, it's almost impossible to stop."

"That's true." Rukia was surprised to see Ichigo agreeing. "It'd be almost as bad as an airborne contagion. Soul Society works on principles of reiatsu, but if it was the reiatsu itself that was carrying this -- you couldn't heal it or you'd risk being infected, you couldn't fight your friends who had it because they might infect you . . . you'd have to quarantine and pray."

"Does Aizen know about this?" Renji asked. "The actual disease bit of it?"

"We can't know," Urahara answered. "The records were purged after the event. He wasn't involved at the time. I have no way of telling how much he's found out. And even if he knows it's dangerous -- well, he may think that he can control it."

Yoruichi twisted in his lap, rolled over, and stretched. "We can't take the risk," she said bluntly. "You'll need to contact Soul Society."

"Out of the question." Urahara looked down at her and rested a hand on her furry stomach. "The charges aside . . ."

The cat snorted. "You know perfectly well that they were looking the other way when we escaped."

"Beside that, Aizen Sousuke's not a fool." Urahara's eyes narrowed. "He'll already be moving if he knows we're thinking about this."

"So what would he do?" Renji demanded. "You two are pretty damn good at outthinking each other. Come on, Urahara-san. What would you be doing right now if you were Aizen?"

Urahara frowned. "Including the fact that he's now lost contact with Tousen-kun, and that he doesn't know how much information he may have passed on to us? I'd cut all possible avenues of research, and do some damage at the same time. Block off our possible ways of stopping him -- cauterise, if you like -- and try and combine this with a strike of some sort to draw our attention while at the same time concealing his true intention."

"Okay. So that's Twelfth and Fourth Division records -- he can't reach those, can he? And anything that's here. And you said . . ." Rukia frowned. "Other kidou experts?"

"Oh yes." Urahara nodded, and stroked Yoruichi's belly. "Some of the aristocratic Houses have their own records and research. Not Kuchiki, of course, but Shiba . . ." He broke off. "Abarai-kun. Contact Soul Society now. I know what he'll be doing, and he'll already be doing it."


	7. Chapter Seven

**

* * *

**

CONTAGION

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

The misty rain damped the banner that hung between the two upraised fists and left it dangling, dreary and sodden. There wasn't even a decent wind with the rain to shake the day into something less dismal and more energetic.

Ganju curried his Bonnie-chan with a sigh. Even if recent events had involved an uncomfortable amount of being attacked, wounded, beaten, and imprisoned, they had nevertheless --

He blinked, then sniffed the air. Something was wrong.

With a slap, he sent Bonnie-chan galloping for her quarters, and rose to his feet, turning in a wide arc to look out at the surrounding fields and forest. He couldn't see anything specific, but there was a tingle in the air, a whisper of something rotten and corrupt and ultimately _cold_. It wasn't even a physical thing. It was a reiatsu thing.

He didn't hesitate. It might have been different if he had been in Seireitai (let the shinigami take care of their own mess, after all), but this was Shiba turf. This was _his_ ground.

"Koganehiko! Shiroganehiko!" he called.

The two brothers emerged without a moment's pause, looming over him from behind. "Yes, young master?" they bellowed in unison.

Ganju did not wince. He was above such things. He was perfectly used to their behaviour. "Sound the alarm," he ordered, "and alert my sister. Something's wrong."

* * *

Ishida watched gloomily as the meeting broke up. Renji had vanished hotfoot back to Soul Society to pass on Urahara's warnings. The shopkeeper was of the opinion that Aizen would want to attack the Shiba household, so that Aizen's own researches couldn't be traced.

Ishida's first thought on hearing that was to ponder how hard Shiba Kuukaku would grind Aizen's face into the mud. His second thought was to wonder just how far Urahara himself would go in order to ensure that _his_ researches couldn't be traced.

He had a headache. This was hardly surprising.

Kurosaki and Kuchiki Rukia strolled out together, already working on grand schemes to protect the neighbourhood, destroy Hollows, save the afflicted, and generally waggle their swords around. He trusted that Kuchiki Rukia could keep Kurosaki in line. The idiot would probably charge straight into a fight and get himself killed or worse, otherwise.

Inoue-san went off with Tessai to learn important facts about how to detect the disease and what to do if she saw it. This was vital, and he could only admire her devotion to healing others . . .

. . . but it left him alone with Urahara and Yoruichi.

"I'm sorry to have neglected you all this time, Ishida-san," the shopkeeper (and previous Twelfth Division Captain, and Ishida knew not to trust Twelfth Division) said with a smile.

A vicious smile, Ishida decided.

"But if I can be of any assistance?"

And for a moment, Ishida could _see_ again. The familiar tangle of white and red threads -- white for normal souls, red for shinigami -- bloomed in the room like a tapestry before fading again.

"Ishida-san?"

_It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter any more, you don't matter, it's coming back_, Ishida would have said, but common sense made him shut his mouth and think, stopped him blurting it all out to the shopkeeper.

There were too many reasons not to trust him as it was. He'd started all this. He'd created the thing. He'd been Twelfth Division Captain (and had he been Captain when the Quincy were hunted down before, had he?) and he'd done things which even now he wouldn't discuss. No. Ishida wasn't going to trust him.

"I'm sorry," he said, glee and caution bubbling through him, and he bowed his head. "I apologise for wasting your time."

Urahara nodded in return, acknowledging the dismissal. "One last thing," he added. "You aren't in danger from the disease, as an effectively normal human and without enough reiatsu to contract it --"

Ishida bit his lip and kept his eyes lowered.

"-- but if you notice anything, kindly inform me or Yoruichi."

"Of course," Ishida said, and inside he was laughing. He knew something that Urahara didn't know. For the first time in his life, he fully understood that knowledge was power.

He would be a Quincy again, and this time there would be no half measures. No weakness.

No foolish stupidity, of course, and no petty brawling, but this time he would show them what being a Quincy _really_ meant.

* * *

Kuukaku came through the doorway and out into the open air at the same time as the _things _fell from the sky, gliding down into a controlled landing. "Not bad, Ganju," she remarked as she inspected them. Her hand was cocked jauntily on her hip. "This is something new."

"Thank you, big sister," Ganju said gratefully.

She was glad to see that he wasn't charging at the creatures right away. Clearly he had gained valuable experience in that recent business, which reminded her, she needed to discuss with him exactly why he'd mispronounced the sphere-directing spell -- wait, she was being distracted. "Explain yourselves," she ordered the creatures.

There were three of them, all dressed in white, with masks that would have been vaguely like a Hollow's except that they were in pieces and scattered around their heads in various ways. One of them was large, one of them had flowing pale hair, and one of them had marked eye patterning.

The one with the eye patterning regarded her as though she was something that he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe and found unworthy of the effort. "Prepare to be destroyed," he informed her flatly. "Prompt submission will result in a swift death."

She didn't like that sort of attitude in shinigami. She liked it even less in whatever these things were. "Well now," she drawled, "you're a bit early for that sort of thing, boy. Come back in a century and you might give me a problem. In the meantime, get off my property or be thrown off."

"Yammi." The eye-patterned one turned to his large colleague. "Destroy her."

Koganehiko and Shiroganehiko moved to stand in front of her, hulking there with their arms folded. "If you want to hurt the mistress --" Koganehiko began.

"You have to go through us first!" Shiroganehiko completed the sentence.

"No problem," the large one growled.

He came charging in like a cannonball. Kuukaku threw herself up in the air to avoid him, curving like a swallow to land on the roof, and watched as below the two servants got smashed into the wall of the house.

She'd take it out of their wages later.

"Oi!" she called down. "You! Yammi! Call that a serious attack, or are you just playing?"

He growled something and gestured. A wave of energy flew at her. She dodged it, and tossed a few fireworks at him to keep him busy while she worked out the parameters on the kidou that she needed. Damn visitors, always turning up at the most inconvenient moments -- "Ganju!" she shouted. "Keep them busy a moment!"

Her little brother whined something about big sister and did he have to, but he was already throwing more bombs at the intruders before he'd finished the complaint. (She'd have a few words with him about that later. Hadn't she always told him that prompt and polite submission to an elder sibling's request was one of the cornerstones of proper behaviour?)

There was a crunch. She looked up. Yammi was standing on the roof opposite her. "Let's see you dodge me now," he said with a wide and toothy grin. Double grin, if you counted the remaining chunk of jawbone clinging to his face.

She went down on one knee and slapped her hand against the roof. There was a moment of mental adjustment as she also touched the roof with the _hand that wasn't there_ -- how strange these phantom sensations always were -- and invoked one of the little bits of kidou she'd built into the structure.

"On your knees . . ." Yammi began, the gloating evident in his voice, and then broke off with a grunt of surprise as the two great hands dropped their banner and bent down to grab him, dangling him between them.

Kuukaku smirked, and the two huge hands slapped themselves together with the creature between them.

A squawk drew her attention to the antics below. Ganju had given up on throwing bombs at the two intruders and was now running around frantically like a chicken with its head cut off. Where, she had to ask herself, was the dignity of the family? Where was the authority? The style? Where --

"Sister!" he howled as the pale-haired one caught up with him. The one with eye-patterning was still standing around and watching.

Well, that was taking matters just too far. In a single quick motion she flicked a knife from her belt, tossed it into the air, and caught it blade first between two fingers as it came down, letting it bite into the flesh of her palm. With three shouted words she activated the warding kidou.

The ground blew up in concentric patterns moving outwards from the house, destroying the carefully cultivated lawn in spiderwebs of fire and concussive force that took the pale-haired creature by surprise -- her little brother had at least memorised the patterns and knew where to position himself so as to take minimum damage -- and tossed him across the grass from explosive nexus to explosive nexus till he slammed into the trees.

The one with eye-patterning had avoided it. Clearly the leader of this little group. "I take surrenders," she called down to him. It'd be amusing to hand him over to the shinigami and see their reaction.

"Unnecessary," he replied. His arms were folded, and there was something curiously uncaring and dead about his face.

Oh, well, if he was going to be like that --

It hit her like a punch from behind, and she went down on one knee again without quite realising what it was, till she saw the blade emerging from her chest in front of her. The trees in the distance were trembling as though with a high wind, and she could feel herself shaking, more irritated by the unexpectedness of the attack than feeling the pain as yet, she hadn't _heard_ anyone come up behind her, let alone someone with a wakizashi, the blade was obvious, her brother had been so fond of swords, she was trying to breathe but now it was hurting, and the blade slid out again and she was falling and slipping off the roof and her hands clenched, but the one that was there and the one that wasn't, and the house held firm but the ground was rising and her little brother was shouting and she should tell him to behave himself . . .

* * *

The thing that hit Ganju the hardest, that left him the most shocked, was the look of sheer surprise in his sister's eyes as she fell forward. It was as if one of the supports of reality had decided to take a stroll and have a quiet smoke round the corner -- _don't worry, I'll be right back, just keep things going in the meantime_ -- and left the whole edifice swaying. His big sister didn't do that. She didn't get hurt. She didn't fall and he didn't have to catch her and she didn't bleed all over him and he was going to _kill_ whoever the fuck had done this.

Except, as cold common sense pointed out like a knife running down his spine, he wasn't sure that he was going to be able to survive the next few seconds.

The big one they'd called Yammi was still stuck in the hands, but he was breaking his way out a finger at a time. The pale-haired one who'd been chasing him was still picking himself off the ground. The one with the weird eyes was looking at him.

Ganju felt the reiatsu even before the fourth one of the group rounded the corner of the house. He was strolling, casual as if he hadn't just tried to kill Ganju's sister, and he was in white now rather than in shinigami black, but he still had a Captain's force, a Captain's presence. A Captain's strength. A Captain's sword. Ichimaru Gin.

With an absolute certainty, Ganju knew the only reason he was alive at the moment was that he was more fun alive than he was dead, and that it wasn't going to last long.

The wall of the house was behind him, and there was nowhere to run.

His sister moved in his arms and groaned. There was blood on her clothing and blood on her mouth.

Shit. This was time for Kurosaki and his friends to show up. For all Seireitai to show up. He'd even be grateful for a few fucking shinigami to show up and wave their fancy swords and make themselves useful.

Instead it was just him.

Ichimaru smiled at him, as pale as death in the rain-shrouded afternoon light, and Ganju decided that even the freaky Eleventh Division shinigami with the weird eyebrows hadn't been as frightening. And speaking of the freaky Eleventh Division shinigami with the weird eyebrows --

"Stone Wave!" he called, and activated the kidou as he slapped his hand back against the wall of the house, diving through the hole as stone crumbled to sand around him. He rolled as he landed, trying not to land on his sister more than necessary, and a blast of force hit the interior wall on the other side of the room, shearing through it and carving further into the house like a swordblade, cutting through stone and shoji alike.

He ran through the house like a fox (or a rabbit), dodging blasts. Dim afternoon light leaked in through the hole in the wall and cast dull spears through the rips in shoji and the shattered pieces of interior furnishings, making the glowworm vines in the wall pale in response. He could hear the servants screaming and hiding themselves. Good. They wouldn't stand a chance. Two more walls went down in the face of his Stone Wave, and he spared a moment of thanks for his sister's firm workmanship, because the house was still standing and it wasn't swaying, definitely it wasn't swaying, any little creaks and noises from above were purely his imagination.

Another wave of force blasted to his right. He jumped to the left and used the Stone Wave again. The wall went down, and he tumbled out into the open air, the grass wet and slick under his feet.

"Nice one," the pale-haired creature said, smirking at him. "Time to die."

The afternoon wind blew direct towards him now, whipping the creature's hair into artistic waves and rippling the grass, tangling his sister's scarves as she hung in his arms. Ganju grinned as he smelt something on it. "I don't think so," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Ganju said, as the black-robed figures came rushing through the trees and down towards Shiba Mansion like a storm wave. "Here comes just what you deserve."

* * *

Kira was already invoking his shikai as they burst through the treeline into the open space surrounding Shiba Mansion. Komamura-taichou was in the lead, which meant more trees to dodge than if Zaraki-taichou had been on the expedition, but fewer than if it had been Ukitake-taichou or any of the other experts who made it look so easy to move around things as though they had never been there in the first place.

He concentrated on little things. The shinigami behind them. Komamura's broad shoulders ahead of him. The weight of his zanpakutou in his hand. The fascinating new banner on Shiba Mansion that involved a pair of giant hands being broken to bits by a partly-masked giant in white robes -- wait, that was real.

Combat training took over as he assessed the situation. Shiba Kuukaku (not that they'd ever met, but the description was unmistakeable) down and wounded, Shiba Ganju cornered, three enemies in white robes active and one temporarily incapacitated on the roof.

Then one of the active three in white robes turned to look at him, and it wasn't possible to concentrate on little things any more.

He knew in an academic sense that his Captain was a traitor. He had agreed when people had told him so. He had apologised for his errors in judgement in following him, and he had been told that there was nothing wrong in obeying his Captain, that Ichimaru Gin had used him but that it was not his fault. He had apologised to Hinamori (for the blade through her body, for leading Hitsugaya-taichou away from her, for crossing swords with her) and she had nodded to him politely.

He wanted to apologise to his Captain for all these things, and he knew that he shouldn't, and as his Captain smiled at him, he knew that he should go across to him with his eyes lowered and say, _Ichimaru-taichou, I --_

"Ichimaru Gin," Komamura-taichou growled. The rumble carried on the wind like thunder. "Surrender."

"Don't think so," Kira's Captain replied, and slid backwards into a parry as Komamura came rushing forwards.

Kira chose not to watch. There were other priorities on the field. One of the other enemies was moving in on the two Shiba siblings. Kira slid across the field in a single flash step and caught the other's blade with his zanpakutou, moving through block and response with the smoothness of practice.

The enemy had long pale hair and a pretty, cruel face; a fragment of bone clung to his head like a broken helmet.

Kira decided that he didn't like the way that the enemy smiled.

"Let's see," the enemy said, head tilted. "You'd be Kira Izuru, right? Vice-Captain of Third? We've heard about you."

Something in Kira's belly knotted and cramped. He shouldn't -- his Captain shouldn't have --

"And I know better than to get hit by your sword," the enemy concluded, bringing his free hand round in a wide sweeping gesture. A wave of force blasted out, and Kira barely parried it by flinging up his zanpakutou. The walls on either side shattered, widening the gap in the wall of the house.

Above him something broke violently and came down in a wave of crashes, breaking tiles and shattering timbers. He couldn't spare the time to look.

Shiba Ganju moved to stand beside him. He wasn't carrying his sister; he must have set her down on the ground behind them. "You're going down," he informed the enemy. "Pretty boy."

The other man -- no, there was something dubious about his reiatsu, something that smelt of Hollow, however human his form -- flipped his hair away from his face. "You may address me as Il Forte while you still have breath to do so."

The air was full of Ichimaru-taichou's reiatsu as he and Komamura-taichou fought. It made it hard for Kira to think clearly. He should be fighting beside his Captain. It was wrong not to be doing so. He couldn't stand being wrong. Being wrong was bad. Making mistakes was bad.

With an effort Kira pulled himself out of the spiral of doubt. He hadn't got his rank because of his looks or any ability to make witty retorts. He'd got it because he deserved it. Even if -- especially if -- Aizen-taichou and Ichimaru-taichou had manipulated them, they'd done it because Kira and Renji and Hinamori were possible threats to them.

(If only he could believe it.)

Shiba Ganju tossed a spray of bombs. Il Forte glided through them, making the motion as careless and fluid as a dance. Kira rushed for him, taking advantage of the brief openings in the enemy's defence that the bombs forced, and Il Forte had to retreat, using a couple of those force blasts to cover his movements. As Kira had thought, it was all very well to know what Kira's zanpakutou did, but avoiding blows from it was harder.

The ground shook as something heavy landed behind Kira. He parried automatically on reflex, and caught a blow on his zanpakutou that would have shattered his shoulder if it had connected. Half turning, he saw that it was the big one who'd been on the roof; dishevelled, damaged, but still in one piece. Unfortunately.

"Be careful, you idiot!" Il Forte called. "He's the one that --"

"He's the trash I'm going to kill," the big one grunted, and brought his bare hand down again in another strike that split the ground in a wide crack when it connected.

"Deal with Il Forte!" Kira called to Shiba Ganju. Of course, it wasn't the best of battlefield situations, with

_tag_

Ichimaru-taichou and Komamura-taichou exchanging blows

_tag_

and with Shiba Kuukaku to watch, but there wasn't time to move her at the moment

_turn and slice_

and if she was still bleeding, then she was still breathing

_tag_

and he'd apologise to her later

_tag_

and Il Forte was apparently too busy crushing Shiba Ganju in person to realise that he'd be one partner less very shortly

_miss a dodge and get thrown across the clearing and get up again and come in again and tag_

and where had that other one gone? There had been another one, hadn't there?

_tag_

"Hey!" the big one roared. He swayed on his feet, trying to balance his weight. "What the fuck have you done to me?"

"Brought you to your knees," Kira informed him, and slashed at his throat.

The big one blocked it easily with his forearm."You think . . ." He shivered as his weight doubled yet again, growled, and fell to his knees.

Il Forte hit Kira from behind, tumbling him across the clearing and getting a grip on Kira's wrist. They landed together with Kira on the bottom. He struggled, but the other was physically stronger, and at that angle he couldn't use Wabisuke. Kidou, then. If he could just get the words out.

Il Forte twisted Kira's wrist, forcing his zanpakutou (for of course he wouldn't let go of it) back across his own body. "I'm going to cut your throat with your own blade," he said sweetly. "We'll see what he thinks of you then."

Reiatsu spiked on the other side of the building. That wasn't just a Captain. That was a Captain releasing bankai.

Il Forte hesitated, face raised to sniff at the air, and Kira brought his legs up and round, slamming his knees into Il Forte's back and toppling him forward and off balance. The two of them rolled across the wet grass together.

"Kokujou Tengen Myouou!" Komamura-taichou bellowed. His voice rolled like thunder, and the shadow which fell across the clearing was darker than an eclipse.

"Oh dear," Ichimaru-taichou said. "Guess I'm out of time. Ulquiorra! Now!"

Shiba Mansion blew up.

Il Forte was the first to react, detaching himself from Kira and fleeing like a white shadow, vanishing into the trees. Kira came to his feet as the flames bloomed behind him, seeing his shadow flatten darkly away from the sudden light, and moved for the building as quickly as he had ever done, catching Shiba Kuukaku up from where she lay unconscious and carrying her back from the blast radius. Shiba Ganju wasn't moving, but he was distant enough, he'd be safe.

He put Shiba Kuukaku down next to her brother, and turned to look at the clearing again, zanpakutou still ready in his hand. Komamura's bankai loomed above the flaming house, head swinging from right to left as it hunted for prey.

Another flicker of white, like a moonlit candle, and Ichimaru-taichou stood a few paces away from him. "You got no greeting for your captain, Izuru-kun?"

Kira swallowed, and angled his zanpakutou aggressively. "You aren't my Captain any more," he said without conviction.

"Awww." Ichimaru-taichou smiled at him. "Now ain't that a shame. I guess I still think of you as my vice-captain, mm?"

"Get back."

"Or?" Still that smile. Still the naked blade in Ichimaru-taichou's hand.

Kira didn't have any witty retorts. He didn't have anything except barely controlled panic, and the constant reminder that Ichimaru-taichou had lied, lied, _lied_ to him. "Or I'll stop you," he said thinly.

Komamura-taichou's great bankai sword came down and split the ground between them in a deep trench. The earth shuddered; the two Shiba siblings twitched in their unconsciousness, jolted like a pair of sleeping dolls.

"Guess I'm stopped," Ichimaru-taichou said, and sheathed his zanpakutou with a smile. "And I guess I'll be seeing you soon, Izuru-kun. Real soon."

Black light closed around him like a mouth, and he was gone.

Kira should have been reporting to Komamura-taichou. He should have been checking and binding Shiba Kuukaku's wounds. But Ichimaru-taichou's words whispered in his heart, a crawling addiction that he couldn't quite bring himself to release.

_Guess I still think of you as my vice-captain._

_Guess I'll be seeing you soon, Izuru-kun._

The slow drizzling rain was cool against his skin. He had work to do. He had to remember that.

And he had a sick headache, pounding and pounding, which wouldn't go away.


	8. Chapter Eight

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"I fail to see the point in this," Komamura rumbled.

Unohana patted his hand before releasing it. "Think of it as a necessary precaution." She smiled vaguely at him, and went back to directing the Fourth Division members swarming over the area. Some were seeing to the Shiba siblings and the servants, while others were busy trying to make sure the house didn't fall down any more than it already had. Komamura had to admire their expertise. He wondered how they'd gotten so good at it.

"Thank you very much, Komamura-taichou," Kotetsu Isane said, drifting up behind him. Her skin was very pale, and the shadows under her eyes dramatically dark. "We appreciate your cooperation in this matter."

Komamura glared at her. "When did you or your Captain last get some rest?" he demanded.

"Fourth Division has drugs for such situations," Kotetsu assured him dreamily. "The situation demands our personal attention, sir."

"Hnnh." Komamura dropped a large hand on her shoulder and drew her aside. He didn't want everyone hearing this. "How bad is it?" he growled.

"You'd need to ask Unohana-taichou for that, sir --"

He snorted. "Give me a straight answer, Kotetsu-fukutaichou, and I won't need to disturb your Captain while she's working."

Kotetsu thought about that one. The soft rain had dampened her hair and plastered her feather-and-bead ornament flat. "It's -- well, Captain, you've seen the briefing? Hollows who have it can infect shinigami. The closer the contact, the higher the likelihood of infection. Shiba Kuukaku and her brother have a high risk of it. And as to other people who were there . . ." Her eyes moved to Kira Izuru.

"He doesn't look well," Komamura observed.

"He hasn't looked well for weeks," Kotetsu agreed.

"And he just collapsed," Komamura added.

He had the feeling that if Kotetsu hadn't rushed over to attend to Kira, she might actually have said something harsh at that point.

Maybe it was just a generic collapse due to injuries that Kira had received during the fight. Maybe. Komamura very much hoped so.

* * *

"There's this disease," Ichigo said.

Chad grunted.

"It's carried by reiatsu and you risk getting it if you fight Hollows that have it."

"So how do you know which Hollows have it?"

Ichigo frowned. He hadn't asked Urahara about that. "I suppose if they look weird and freakish and mutated --"

"Actually, Yasutora-san should be fairly safe," Rukia put in. "After all, when you hit something with one of your power blasts, Yasutora-san, it's already detached from your own reiatsu. It shouldn't be possible for it to come back and infect you -- right, Ichigo? So as long as you exercise sensible precautions . . ."

"Stand back and hit them," Chad said dryly. "I can do that."

It was at that point that Rukia's beeper went off, and further discussion was put aside in the general rush to find Hollows and kick seven bells out of them, and Ichigo quite forgot to ask Chad if he knew where Ishida had got to.

* * *

Kyouraku Shunsui peered at the piles of paper that filled the office. Someone had clearly not had enough room on her desk, and had borrowed his desk, and part of the floor while she was at it. The someone in question was currently kneeling between two lists and trying to match them date for date and name for name.

"My lovely Nanao-chan . . ." he started.

"Don't step there!" his lovely Nanao-chan snarled at him. "You'll disturb my organisation!"

He maintained his Captainly honour by standing in the doorway and not retreating. "Are you engaged in some sort of research project, Nanao-chan?"

She adjusted her glasses, which had slipped down the bridge of her nose, and looked up at him keenly. "You remember that data you had me investigating for you earlier, sir?"

"Mnh." He considered the tension in her hands, the bright eagerness in her eyes, the dust stains all over her uniform. "You've found something?"

"More than something." She waved a sheaf of documents at him. "I've been trying to locate the people who were involved in the original experiment. Barring Urahara Kisuke, whom I think you'd know more about contacting than I would . . ."

He adjusted his hat. "Since everything that's come up," he said regretfully, "any contact with him is going to have to go through formal channels. Yama-ji's been very definite about that. The old chap used some positively _stringent_ language." He ignored the you-probably-deserved-that-language stare she was giving him with the ease of long practice. "So do you know about anyone else who was involved in it?"

"Well." She put the papers down again. "Frankly, sir, these records have been edited. Someone's been through them."

"Such as Aizen?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," she said darkly. "But if it was, I don't think he was the first. They were written very casually in the first place, from what I saw -- a lot of references to "so-and-so", or "the planned procedure", and hardly any full details. I'd suspect that there were full transcripts, but that they were either removed by Urahara himself, or by Kurotsuchi-taichou . . ." She sighed. "Or that they were censured on the orders of the Chamber of Forty-Six to bury whatever happened."

He leaned against the doorframe. "Yes," he agreed. "It seems a plausible supposition that they would have wanted to bury it very deep indeed. The Captains at the time heard the basic details, but other than that -- nothing. And of course, the later Captains, like Byakuya-kun or Toushirou-kun, wouldn't have heard about it at all."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't think that's dangerous, sir?"

"My dear Nanao-chan." He smiled at her. "Who am I to go against official policy?"

"First in line, usually," she muttered.

"But it's not just that," he said, more seriously. "Nanao-chan, we need information, and you might be able to find it. Kurotsuchi-taichou wasn't involved at the time. That was established. If I thought that demanding to see all the records would help, then I would. But I think that you're right; they've already been censured and then picked over, and half the people on the project died in the first place. If there is anything that you can find . . ."

She adjusted her glasses again. "Sir, if you wish to be useful, you'll requisition death figures from Twelfth and Fourth for a decade each side of the experimental dates, together with anything on the archives on Shiba alchemy usage -- I'm thinking that's why Aizen staged that attack on their House -- and retirement figures, while you're at it. I'm trying to trace names."

"And a bottle of wine or two," he said helpfully.

"And a bottle of wine or --" she repeated, then caught herself mid-sentence. "Kyouraku-taichou!"

"I'm going, my lovely Nanao-chan, I'm going," he said as he slipped out of the room.

* * *

Ishida followed his senses through the streets of Karakura. There was a tingling in the air, a dryness, an oppressive weight of oncoming thunder; even normal people seemed to be able to feel it, and had withdrawn into their houses. Of course, he, as a Quincy, was a thousand times better able to sense it than them.

When the Hollow loomed in front of him, it was hardly a surprise. He had felt it streets away.

"Pitiful human soul," it hissed, "how is it that you are able to see arrgh!"

Ishida smiled as he blew it apart with a single arrow.

His bow of energy crackled in his hands once again. Everything was all right.

Everything was finally all right.

Perhaps if he went looking, he could find more Hollows to kill.

* * *

Renji caught up with Rukia and Ichigo and Chad in the middle of several large piles of dust. "You bastards," he said amiably. "You could have left some for me."

"Yeah, yeah." Ichigo slid Zangetsu back into its wrappings. "Ain't my fault you're a lazy-ass who wasn't around."

"Never mind that," Rukia cut in. "What did they have to say back there?" Her hooked thumb indicated the general direction of Soul Society.

Renji sighed. "I reported to Kuchiki-taichou. He said, 'Mm,' a lot."

Ichigo snorted. "Real helpful."

"Well, what do you expect him to say?" Renji demanded, perversely annoyed at the way that Ichigo had externalised his own thoughts.

"He could have said he was going to come here and talk to Urahara and do something!" Ichigo snapped. "We're not going to get anywhere if people don't _talk_ about this!"

Chad dropped his hand on Ichigo's shoulder and squeezed. "Ichigo. You're angry."

"Damn right I am."

Rukia was staring at Ichigo. There was something in her gaze that Renji remembered; a sort of insight, an understanding that he had never valued until he'd lost it for too long. "Ichigo, what is it that's worrying you so much? We all know there's danger."

Ichigo ran his hand through his hair. "Shit. Look. You know my dad's a doctor."

Chad and Rukia nodded.

"So I know some basic things about anatomy and diseases and whatever."

"Yeah? So does Unohana-taichou. And she's not reacting like this."

"Then she's faking it," Ichigo said, with such certainty that it made Renji pause. "Look. Diseases are carried in different ways. Sometimes it's in the breath. Like tuberculosis. Sometimes it's by body fluid, like infected blood getting into a cut. Sometimes it's parasites, like fleas on rats with plague, or like mosquitoes with malaria. Sometimes it's touch. But this is new. This is reiatsu. You lot in Soul Society are raising reiatsu all the time. Fights with Hollows, fights with each other, even just losing your temper. And Urahara's saying that you can't even heal it without risking being infected. You can't fight Hollows who've got it without risking being infected. Renji, if it gets a serious hold on the population, you are not going to be able to stop it."

There was a long silence.

Renji scratched his head. "But if they can work out what they did last time, then they can just do it again this time, right?"

"In that case, I'd have thought Urahara would be looking more optimistic," Rukia said. "Oh, what happened about the Shiba?"

Renji frowned. The whole Shiba thing rankled. He couldn't help feeling that if he'd got there five minutes earlier with Urahara's warning, then things would have been different. "Ichimaru Gin and some weird Hollows attacked. Komamura-taichou and Kira-fukutaichou got there in time to get everyone out alive, but the house got kinda trashed. They're investigating. Ichimaru got away."

"It's a good thing that you got there in time with the warning," Chad said.

"I was too late," Renji muttered.

"No," Rukia said. She glanced at Chad for a moment, and he nodded. "You were in time. Too late would have meant that they were dead. Or worse." She folded her arms, her lips thin and tightly pressed together.

Ichigo coughed. "So, hey, Renji. Want to help us get rid of some Hollows?"

"Sounds good," Renji agreed, glad to break the mood.

"There it is again," Chad muttered.

"What?"

"There's something following us," Chad said patiently. "It creeps around. It's sort of pale and has odd eyes."

"I haven't seen it," Rukia said, with just the faintest undertone of brittleness to her voice.

"That's because it keeps on avoiding you and Ichigo," Chad said. "It's being careful to hide from you two. I don't think it's being as careful to hide from me."

Renji turned round and stared in the direction that Chad had been looking in. "I can't see anything either."

Chad shrugged.

"We'll keep an eye out for it," Ichigo said. "Perhaps it'll show itself later."

* * *

Nanao found Kotetsu Isane in one of the restrooms of Fourth Division. The taller woman was sitting with a cup of tea between her hands, staring at it as though she wasn't sure what to do with it.

Nanao was familiar with the symptoms of extreme exhaustion. She poured herself some of the tea, and sat down opposite Isane. "Kotetsu-san?" she prompted her.

Isane blinked and looked at her, eyes taking a moment to focus. "Ise-san. You don't need to be so formal, you know. Wait, is this an official visit? Because --"

Nanao shook her head. "Not official at all. I just came over to check on something. Drink your tea, Isane. You look as if you're about to fall asleep."

Isane blushed. "I feel that way." She sipped her tea. "It's being . . . busy."

"It looks it." The corridors had been full. The wards more so. "I'm assuming most of the cases are quarantine rather than strict infection?"

"Yes. We've had some cases -- this is on a need-to-know basis, by the way -- where the infection took a little while to assert itself. It's safer to quarantine everyone and then check them."

"Have you had any success in treating it?" Nanao asked, and couldn't keep an undertone of concern out of her voice.

"Some." Isane drank more of her tea. "We've found that high application of reiatsu from one healer of Unohana-taichou's level, or several lower-level ones working together, can manage to stabilise the patient and even burn it out of their system. But the healers have to be shielded while they're doing it so that_ they_ don't get infected, and the whole thing is very labour-intensive."

"So," Nanao said dubiously, "as long as we can keep it within the boundaries of our capacity to treat it that way . . ."

Isane nodded. "That long. Yes." She took a breath. "What was it you wanted to see me about?"

Nanao drank some of her own tea before answering. The data in Twelfth's records had said that someone from Fourth had been involved. Could it have been Unohana-taichou herself? If so, then direct questions to Isane weren't going to get her anywhere. She'd have to leave it to her Captain to talk to Unohana-taichou himself. But possibly some general information might help. She'd been through the figures on deaths and discharges from Fourth at that period, and there hadn't been any losses from the higher-ranking seats at the point of Urahara Kisuke's exile. She needed more information. "I'm looking into something that happened about a hundred years ago, around the time of Urahara Kisuke's exile," she started. "It may have to do with what Aizen Sousuke's doing now."

Isane frowned thoughtfully and toyed with the feather in her hair ornament. "I was only third seat then. I take it that it's Fourth Division you're thinking about?"

Nanao nodded. "I'm really looking for anomalies. Anything unusual that sticks in your memory. We don't know exactly what Aizen was doing or is doing, so anything may be relevant." She felt a twinge of guilt at dancing round the subject like this -- misleading a colleague, even -- but consoled herself with the thought that if there _was_ a logical connection to be made with the disease at this point, Isane of all people should be well-informed enough to make it.

"Mm." Isane refilled her cup of tea. "Honestly, the person who would have known is the very one who isn't here. My predecessor as vice-captain. He died in a mission a couple of years after Urahara . . . left. If anyone other than Unohana knew, he'd have been the one."

Nanao tapped her finger against the side of her cup. "I was only a lower seat then myself. That was . . . Shiba Isshin, wasn't it?" The name had been on the death rosters a couple of years after the Urahara business, and she hadn't considered it a high likelihood. He'd been marked as "missing on mission, presumed dead".

Isane nodded. She lowered her voice. "He was slipping into a decline, towards the end. He'd always been so cheerful, even more than Shiba Kaien was -- but over the last few years, he just got more and more depressed. Unohana-taichou did everything she could to try to help him. I've seen it sometimes, in other healers here. They just look around at all the people they can't help, and they give up. That last mission, the one he didn't come back from -- I think Unohana-taichou knew it was going to happen. I think she expected it."

"It was Shiba Mansion that just got attacked," Nanao said slowly. "If Aizen Sousuke had been looking for something connected to him --"

"No," Isane said. "They wouldn't have kept anything. What I heard, between the two of us, was that they thought he'd somehow disgraced himself. Even though Unohana-taichou herself said that his actions had always been everything that was proper! They felt he was to blame! I heard they even took his name off the House records."

Nanao thought back to all the times she'd spoken to Shiba Kaien, vice-captain to vice-captain, friend to friend. "Kaien never mentioned him," she was forced to agree.

"Isshin was a good man," Isane said firmly. "His family got it wrong. He was a little eccentric, but he was one of the best healers I've ever known! I can believe that he died in the line of duty far more easily than that he'd somehow given up and run away."

The tiny worm of cold certainty twisted and grew in Nanao's stomach. The timing fitted. It fitted too well.

Isane clearly had no idea what Shiba Isshin might have been running away from.

* * *

Orihime skipped happily on her way home. Naturally she was as disturbed as anyone else by this horrendous disease, but at least they had a plan to deal with it. Plans were vitally important. Without plans, they might as well be trying to drain a swamp while vicious man-eating alligators were attacking them and they wouldn't even have guns and lassoos to hold them off with.

She reached a convenient alley, turned down it, and sat on a small flight of steps. The house behind her had been empty for years. Nobody would see her here.

"You can come out now!" she called.

Light flashed on either side of her face, blinding her for a moment, and her six protectors came loose from her hairpins, buzzing around her head.

Tsubaki was the first to speak. "Stupid girl! Are you out of your mind! Going off on your own like this -- you could be kidnapped!"

Orihime sighed. "But Tsubaki-kun, you're all here to protect me, aren't you? And it's Ichigo and Rukia that Aizen's been interested in, or Urahara-san. Not me."

Tsubaki folded his arms and perched himself on her knee, glaring at her over his mask.

"Besides," Orihime added, "if I do get attacked by one of the sick Hollows, I think I could heal it."

"We could try," Shunou chirped. "But if you get infected first --"

"I've thought about this," Orihime said stubbornly. "First I shield myself. Then I heal it. Then if it won't be reasonable, I use Tsubaki to send it on. I promise that I won't be reckless, but I have to try. It could happen to anyone. It's not the Hollows' fault. What if it had happened to Sora, when he was one?" Her voice wavered for a moment. "All the Hollows were someone else. Once."

"You're a soft-hearted ninny, mistress," Tsubaki snarled. "We're clearly going to have our work cut out keeping you safe."

Orihime smiled at him. "You're my little death robot laser," she said.

* * *

Ulquiorra knelt before his master. His right eye socket ached in the dull but familiar way, as the eye there regenerated itself. It was a minor pain, easily ignored, alleviated by Aizen-sama's praise.

"Very well done," Aizen-sama said. Images flickered and rippled in the space between them, casting shadows on the wall. "The Kurosaki boy and his friends are unlikely to be a significant threat, but should Urahara try to use them against us --"

He broke off. Ulquiorra dared to raise his eyes, and saw one of the rarest expressions to ever cross his overlord's face. Surprise. There was something in the image that Aizen-sama had not expected.

He hadn't thought much of it himself, except inasmuch as it demonstrated the mortal trash's fatal weaknesses and human failings. A house. A sign. The Kurosaki boy and the Kuchiki girl approaching it. A man standing in the doorway and waving to them. Two children behind him.

Aizen-sama's eyes seemed to glow. "Ulquiorra," he said, "my fourth Espada, you have given me something I hadn't dared hope to find." He closed his hand around Ulquiorra's eye. "Find me Ichimaru. Tell him that I want to see him at once. We have the opportunity to deny the enemy any hope at all, and I believe that we shall take it."


	9. Chapter Nine

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER NINE**

Isane's hands fluttered over the papers that covered Unohana's desk. "And there's this one, that's from Yamamoto-soutaichou -- and this one, from Hitsugaya-taichou, about Hinamori-kun -- and this one --"

Unohana shook her sleeves back and began to sort the papers into piles. "Sit down, Isane. Here. Go through these and let me know what they are while I check Yamamoto-soutaichou's ones."

Isane relaxed. She pulled up the small chair to sit opposite her Captain, and began to scan the papers. "This one's from Zaraki-taichou. He wants his men released."

"Have they been checked?"

"Not all."

"Send him a very polite note that in response to his query we are glad to release some of his men, and will let the others go as soon as possible. Then throw out the ones we've checked." Unohana wrote as she spoke, her ink brush flickering in neat characters across the paper. "Next?"

"Hitsugaya-taichou. He wants to know how long before Hinamori-kun's fit for duty --"

"Denied."

"Captain . . ."

"We don't know how much psychological damage Aizen's done to her. She can't be risked in command at a time like this. Keep her under observation till we're satisfied she's safe. Phrase the response more politely. Next?"

"Request from Third's third seat about Kira-fukutaichou's status."

"Tell them he's fainted from injuries received during the fight. Flag a copy for Ukitake-taichou's attention and suggest he drops by to help."

"Ukitake-taichou?"

"Third will need a gentle hand at the moment. With Ichimaru in charge for the last few decades . . ." Unohana signed off another document. "Next?"

"Request for files on some of the recently afflicted from Kurotsuchi-taichou for his research."

"Send him the files," Unohana directed, "and tell the patients involved to stay inside Fourth and not leave it under any circumstances and certainly not to go to Twelfth."

Isane nodded. "Returned files from Ise-fukutaichou with a note of thanks."

"That girl," Unohana said flatly, "is _wasted _on Shunsui."

"Captain?"

"Never mind. Next?"

* * *

Ishida paused to take another swig from the bottle of water that he was carrying with him. His grandfather had always said that when going on a hunt, the Quincy must remember to care for himself as well as for any other weapon, because the Quincy is a weapon.

He could hear his grandfather's voice now in his memory. He'd never forget it.

The sun was moving towards setting. This was a hot autumn day rather than a cool one, a throwback to dust and thick air rather than cool breezes and maple leaves, and probably that was why he was sweating so much. That, and the exercise of using his Quincy powers again. He'd dealt with I five /I Hollows now, blasted them out of existence, and it had felt so good.

He'd have to get back into regular training. Back to the waterfall and the quiet forest clearing and the exercise of grip, pull, release. Back to the unconscious mindset of aim-and-shoot. Eventually. Soon.

But not for the length of this glorious, beautiful, perfect afternoon. Pride of the Quincy. Yes. He had pride once more. He could hold up his head and say . . . well, say something.

He drank more water. If only there was a breeze . . . ah, wait. He could sense it now. Hollow sign to the west.

He began to run.

* * *

Nanao nearly ran into Kuchiki Rukia in the passageway, the process being accelerated by the papers which filled her arms and the speed which Kuchiki Rukia was moving at. Long years of experience at avoiding her own Captain's deliberate attempts at collisions helped her manage a three-point-turn and rapid brake while simultaneously redirecting Kuchiki Rukia into the nearest empty bit of corridor.

"Oh!" Kuchiki stammered. "I'm so sorry, Ise-fukutaichou -- I didn't expect to see you here in Thirteenth?"

"I'm looking for my Captain," Nanao said briskly. "Who is, I believe, with _your_ Captain, and if you would happen to know where the two of them are," _hiding,_ she almost said, "currently located?"

"Third Seat Kotsubaki said that Ukitake-taichou was out by the lake," Kuchiki said cheerfully. "I was just going there myself. I have to report to him. If you'd follow me, Ise-fukutaichou?"

Nanao nodded. "Thank you, Kuchiki. That would be most kind of you." Not that she didn't know the way to the little bower by the lake, but the formalities must be observed.

When they got there, Nanao pursed her lips to see that the scene was just as she had anticipated. Frivolity, debauchery, and post-debauchery exhaustion.

"Ukitake-taichou!" Kuchiki exclaimed. "Kyouraku-taichou!" She gave a little bow. "Third Seat Kotsubaki said that you'd brought Ukitake-taichou's cough mixture by, thank you very much . . ."

_Ah, innocence. And Kyouraku-taichou really needs to think of some new excuses._ Nanao made her bows, then coughed meaningfully. "Sir, about the research you had me doing?"

"Put it down there a moment," Kyouraku-taichou instructed her amiably, "and pour us some tea while Rukia-chan gives her report, my lovely Nanao-chan."

Nanao strongly considered sniffing, but Ukitake-taichou's amused glance mollified her. She set down the pile of scrolls and sketches, and knelt down by the tea service.

Kuchiki folded her hands very formally, clearly conscious of another Captain's presence. "We've had an upswing in the number of Hollows running round Karakura, Ukitake-taichou, but nothing that we haven't been able to contain. So far Ichigo and Renji aren't showing any signs of infection -- and nor am I," she added dutifully. "And Yasutora-kun or Inoue-kun or Ishida-kun must be dealing with the Hollows too, as we've had several alerts that turned out not to be anything once we got there, so it's either them or Urahara-san and his group cleaning them up, but so far we haven't caught up with them to ask which of them is doing it."

She paused. Her gaze flicked to Nanao's pile of papers. She hesitated.

"Yes, Kuchiki?" Ukitake-taichou prompted her.

"Ah, Captain . . ."

"Go on," Ukitake-taichou said encouragingly.

Kuchiki took a deep breath. "It's not that I want to be inquisitive or ask questions where I shouldn't, but why are you investigating Ichigo's father?"

"What?" Kyouraku-taichou said.

Kuchiki jerked her chin at the papers. "That picture of him . . ."

"What?" Nanao repeated her Captain. "That's Shiba Isshin, Kuchiki. Before your time."

"Shiba _Isshin_?" Kuchiki stuttered. "But that's Kurosaki Isshin, Shiba Kaien never said anything about a Shiba Isshin . . ."

Ukitake-taichou held up one hand. "Ise-kun. Your research. What have you to do with Shiba Isshin?" There was a note in his voice that she couldn't quite place.

Nanao glanced to her Captain, who waved a loose _go ahead_ at her, pulling his hat down aslant. Relieved of any need for discretion, she said, "I was looking into people who were around during the experiments previously, sir, as I think you know --"

Ukitake-taichou nodded.

"Someone from Fourth was involved," she went on. "Evidence suggested it was Shiba Isshin, who was vice-captain of Fourth at the time. He went missing during a mission, presumed dead. I was coming to report this to Kyouraku-taichou, with all the information I could find on Shiba Isshin, including that sketch from files . . ."

Ukitake-taichou turned to Kuchiki Rukia.

"That's Kurosaki Isshin," she said without hesitation. "Ichigo's father. I don't know anything about there being a Shiba that I've never heard of," and there was more than a touch of annoyance and snubbed pride in her voice, "but that is definitely Kurosaki Isshin."

Ukitake-taichou and Kyouraku-taichou looked at each other. Kyouraku-taichou grunted. Ukitake-taichou ran his hand through his hair.

"Sir?" Kuchiki said nervously.

"Right." Ukitake-taichou rose to his feet, throwing off the casual robe that he'd draped over his uniform. "Ise-kun, thank you, I'll go through those later. Shunsui, I need you to cover for me while I make a quick expedition to the world of the living based on the vital information which_ my_ subordinate has just reported --"

Kuchiki blinked. Nanao, more experienced in the art of retrospective justification of dubious actions, nodded.

"Can't I come too?" Kyouraku-taichou sighed plaintively.

"I need all this filed an hour ago, including the prior notification to Yamamoto-soutaichou," Ukitake-taichou said patiently, grabbing up his Captain's coat from where it was draped over a chair.

"Nanao-chan?" her Captain enquired.

"Covered, sir," Nanao said, picking up a piece of paper and beginning to draft the formal memorandum.

"And I need someone to keep an eye on things here for when I bring him back."

Kuchiki looked between the two men, slightly dazed. "But surely everyone's . . ."

"Later, Kuchiki," Ukitake-taichou said, grabbing her by the shoulder. "And later, Shunsui, Ise-kun. If you will excuse me --"

He and Kuchiki Rukia were abruptly gone in a coil of wind and the sound of flash steps.

"Sign here, here, and here," Nanao said, presenting her Captain with the paper.

"Ah, my beautiful Nanao-chan," he murmured, taking the inkbrush from her. "Isn't it a good thing that you aren't a professional forger."

"I've often thought so too, sir," she agreed smugly.

* * *

Hinamori sat and looked out of the window. She had folded her hands in her lap so that she would not be tempted to fidget, or to reach for Tobiume, or to leaf through books and then put them down again, or . . . or anything. She was quite calm now, quite still.

She would be as still and calm as was necessary to get out of here. Begging to speak to Aizen-taichou had been a mistake, she could see that now, just as her tearful appeals to Shirou-kun had only made matters worse. People had looked over her head, looked past her, avoided her gaze, exchanged glances when she had thought she couldn't see them . . .

She hadn't said anything, of course. She would only have looked more pathetic.

Aizen-taichou had taught her how to plan. He'd taken a just-qualified shinigami out of the Academy and made her a competent tactical leader. She wouldn't refuse the knowledge. Her objectives were simple enough: get out of here, find him, and -- and then save him. She had to save him.

She looked down at her hands.

But that wasn't all. She had to look after the Division. He'd left them because he knew she could take care of them. She had a duty to them: Matsumoto had been right. She was responsible for them, and she had a duty to Kira-kun as well, and Shirou-kun, and all of them. And none of this, _none_ of it, could be seen to while she was sitting here.

She had to persuade them that she was sane. That she was competent. That they could trust her.

There had to be a way.

She looked out of the window, at the sunlight on the garden, and kept her hands very still as she thought.

* * *

Yuzu came trotting out of the greengrocer's with the mushrooms in one bag and the radishes in the other. It was early for the mushrooms, but the hot weather that had carried over into autumn seemed to be bringing all the vegetables on a little out of season. Her brow furrowed as she considered how to prepare them. Maybe steamed, with the rice as plain as possible, and the radish grated on the side? And a couple of leaves of --

"Excuse me," a voice said from behind her.

She turned to look up and see a tall man with short pale hair. He had a smile, a pleasant smile, and it probably wasn't his fault that it curved _quite_ like that at the corners.

"You'd be one of the Kurosaki girls, mm?" the man asked.

She nodded. "Yes, sir. Were you wanting to see my father? His clinic will still be open at this time of day."

"Sounds good," the man replied. His eyes were barely open. "Don't suppose you could show me and my friends the way there?"

"Of course," she agreed cheerfully.

"Better and better." The man snapped his fingers at one of the others loitering behind him. "Il Forte, carry this nice girl's bags for her. Least we can do is to be polite."

"Thank you!" Yuzu dimpled politely at the blond man who took her bags, trying to ignore his sulky air, and smiled up at the pale-haired one. "It's just this way, sir. Only a short walk."

"Ain't it a good thing we ran into you," he said with a smile, falling into step beside her.

* * *

There was nothing now but the hunt. It carried Ishida across the city like a river. It was like being a child again, running downhill and trying to keep pace with the slope and the speed so that he wouldn't fall down. He had never felt like this before, not even when he had broken his glove and drawn on the full power of the Quincy in Seireitai. There it had been like starlight; now it was a naked heat that he could feel in his veins, that seemed to burn through him and tug him on. He didn't even need to look. He could feel the sources of reiatsu and they drew him like lodestones.

With casual grace he leapt to the rooftop, not even thinking about it as he performed the hirenkyaku. He could sense his prey over in the next street.

There. Two of them. One was large and one was slighter. They both burned with reiatsu. They were Hollows. They had to be. Or shinigami. Hollows or shinigami. Hollows or shinigami were as bad as each other anyway. They killed and they killed cruelly and they destroyed and he could remember the screams like buzzing in his mind, remember his own voice as the blade went into his shoulder and wrenched, the high thin giggling . . .

_Inoue? Sado?_

. . . he could hear giggling now. They were giggling at him. He should shoot them down before they had a chance to notice him. Yes. For the pride of the Quincy.

_This is wrong._

The bowstring sang high and sweet as he drew it back and aimed the shot.

_There is something I should remember._

Why was he hesitating?

* * *

"I don't see why Rukia had to go back and you didn't," Ichigo said, in what he flattered himself were tones of sweet reason.

Renji sneered at him. "Rukia had to report to Ukitake-taichou, didn't she? _I_ don't have to report to Kuchiki-taichou till later. Or I can send a butterfly."

Ichigo snorted, then drew his knees up to under his chin. They were both sitting on the school roof. It was the end of the day, and only a few late-evening societies were still around the place, and certainly nobody likely to be able to see either of them as they were. "Renji . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Has anyone considered getting the Hougyouku back off Aizen?"

Renji ran his hand through his hair. "Well, that's a good question, isn't it? I figure the Captains have to be planning something. We can't just sit here."

"So?"

"So I haven't been told anything yet."

Ichigo snorted again. "It's not as if we aren't _involved_."

"Thought you wanted to just get back to being a student."

"Yeah." Ichigo thought about that. "Well. After this is all over. Not right in the middle of it."

"Besides," Renji said with airy casualness, "it wouldn't be easy."

"Mm?"

"Well." Renji crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward. "We'd have to get into Hueco Mundo, see. That means either some very powerful kidou or somehow getting a Hollow to take us there. Then we'd have to find where Aizen was hiding out. And the local Hollows'd probably be, you know. Not happy to see us. Then we just have to get the Hougyouku off him and get it back here and twist Urahara's arm up his fucking back till he thinks of a way to smash it."

"And Aizen wouldn't be expecting it," Ichigo said thoughtfully. "So it wouldn't be like it was last time."

"Well, he has to be expecting _something_. Just not us and not so soon. If he's got spies in Soul Society --"

"Spies?"

"Well, you don't know, do you? Second have been . . ." Renji gave an uncomfortably descriptive shrug. "Investigating stuff. But you have to figure he's at least keeping track of what's being done in public. He's not stupid."

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed. "I guess he could have planted bugs . . . remote surveillance devices or kidou," he added hastily as Renji opened his mouth to no doubt ask what insects had to do with it. "So some sort of independent attempt might work best."

"Yeah."

"Do you suppose we could get Urahara or Yoruichi in on it?"

"You'd trust them?"

"Trust them, no. But they're very good. We'd need people who were, you know, good at fighting but good at sneaking around too."

"That rules out Zaraki, then."

"Do me a favour," Ichigo said, with feeling, "and if you see Zaraki coming, tell me so that I can be somewhere else. For the next ten years. At least."

* * *

Yuzu pointed to the clinic sign ahead. "There you are, sir! The Kurosaki Clinic. Shall I run on ahead and tell Papa that you're coming?"

The men exchanged glances. The pale-haired one smiled at her again. "I'd kinda like it if you waited out here with us while one of my friends rings the doorbell."

Yuzu wasn't stupid. Papa had given her all the lectures about strange men and what to do if they acted weird. The first step was to scream. The second step was to run away.

She didn't manage to get more than a squeak out. The pale-haired man had moved far too fast, even faster than Ichi-nee-san when he was beating up Papa, and he had her bundled under his arm with one hand over her mouth. "Ring the doorbell, Grimmjow."

"What about this, Ichimaru-sama?" the one called Il Forte asked, dangling her shopping casually.

"Put it on one side now," Ichimaru -- the pale-haired man -- said pleasantly. "Don't want to get the lady's vegetables all messed up now, do we? Now be a good girl and stop trying to bite my hand, and everything'll be all right."

Yuzu glared up at him.

The sulky-looking blue-haired man stepped forward and jabbed a finger into the doorbell as though he was trying to punch a hole through someone's torso.

The doorbell chimed.

Footsteps from inside. Yuzu squirmed harder and kicked, but Ichimaru had her tucked into a grip that she couldn't get loose from.

Papa swung the door open. "Ah! Patie--"

He cut off mid-sentence and went very still. Yuzu tried to meet his eyes, to look at him and make him understand how sorry she was, but he was looking at the man holding her, and not at her.

"Ichimaru Gin," he finally said.

"Shiba Isshin," Ichimaru replied. His grin was like a scalpel-cut across his face. "Long time no see. Now you're going to be reasonable about this, mm?"

"Define reasonable." Her papa shifted his feet, settling into a fighting stance.

"You're going to come along quietly with us, and in return I'm going to let your cute little daughter here go unharmed. Easy."

"Your word on it?" Papa was so much more serious than normal. He was the way that he was when he was operating, focused and precise.

"My word," Ichimaru said blithely. "And for all my men here too. It's you we want, not her."

_Don't do it, Papa!_ Yuzu tried to scream through the hand that covered her mouth. A whimper came out.

"And I can trust your word?"

Ichimaru chuckled. "Let's be nice about it and not say that you ain't got no choice, mm?"

Papa seemed to shrink in on himself. "Very well," he said. "Let me just --"

"Uh-uh." Ichimaru nodded to two of his men, and they stepped forward to flank Yuzu's papa. "No going back in the house. No little phone calls or hell butterflies to friends. We're just going to take a quiet little walk to somewhere that we can leave from discreetly, and then I'll put your cute little daughter down and let her go. What, ain't you gonna say nothing?"

"What I have to say to you isn't fit to be said in front of my daughter's ears."

Ichimaru snickered. Yuzu could feel the movement of air in his ribcage where he held her pressed against him. "You're so old-fashioned."

"Put her down and I'll give you my word to come quietly."

Ichimaru seemed to consider it for a moment, just long enough to let Yuzu's heart rise in her throat, then shook his head. "You gotta figure, Shiba Isshin, I just don't trust people like you --"

Wind cracked like thunder at the end of the street, and the air shivered with the concussion. Yuzu was conscious of a moment's wrenching and folds of whiteness, whiteness like silk and clouds and lightning, and then she was halfway down the street again from Ichimaru and his men and papa, cradled in a stranger's arms. She could just about make him out, if she squinted. He was like the ghosts that she'd almost seen before, only more _there_, more present; his long white hair blew back over his shoulders, and the folds of his white coat and black sleeves shivered and tugged in the wind. Ichigo's friend Rukia-san was standing behind him, but she was blurry too, her outline not quite there, not as strong as the man in white.

Ichimaru and the men with him were falling to the ground, but there were figures standing there like ghosts where they had been, blurry images of white bone and funeral silk. And papa -- papa was doing the same thing, except that his robes were black, as black as Ichigo's friend Rukia-san, and he had his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Ichimaru Gin," the man holding her said. His voice had an echo to it, a timbre like distant storms. "I thought that I had seen the worst of you. I was wrong."

"Ukitake-taichou," Ichimaru said, giving him a cheerful nod. His smile was more malicious now, less playful. "Kind of you to drop by. Pity it weren't for nothing."

Ukitake looked down at Yuzu. "Be careful," he said, his tone gentle in its control, as he set her down on the ground. "Stay back."

Rukia-san nodded remotely to Yuzu. She had already drawn her own sword, and it gleamed paler than the bone on the faces of Ichimaru's men, sharper than diamond.

Yuzu nodded in return. "Please," she whispered. "Help papa."

He simply nodded, then turned back towards Ichimaru and his men. His hand fell to the hilt of his blade.

Rukia-san stepped in front of Yuzu.

The thunder was all round her now, it was in the air, it was like wind and monsoon and earthquakes. Yuzu fell to the ground, curling up in a ball with her hands pressed against her skull as though it could keep the pressure out, as Ukitake drew his sword.


	10. Chapter Ten

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER TEN**

"Ishida-kun?" Orihime said slowly.

There was a blur of light around Ishida's body. It moved and crawled and flexed like a spider's web caught in the wind, making it hard to look at him clearly. Chad brought up one hand to shield his eyes.

"Pride of the Quincy," Ishida said dreamily. The same nimbus of light crawled around the constructs of energy that formed his bow and arrow, giving them an unhealthy sheen. "I will destroy the Hollows."

"That's marvellous, Ishida-kun!" Orihime said, taking a bouncy step forward. "I --

Chad grabbed her shoulder. She looked up at him with big surprised eyes, and Chad had to harden his heart against that devastating cuteness. "Stop, Inoue," he said. "Something's wrong with him."

"Rubbish!" Orihime declared blithely. "I'm sure Ishida-kun's just reached a new level of power. Everyone keeps on doing it!"

"Inoue," Chad said gently, "you have noticed that he is pointing his arrow at _us_?"

Orihime leaned closer. "Hush," she whispered. "I'm trying to act as if I don't notice it so that we can get closer to him."

"Oh." Chad decided that telling her he'd thought she was going to happily waltz into the metaphorical jaws of the metaphorical alligator would not help the situation. "Of course." He tried waving his free hand at Ishida. "Hello, Ishida! I hope you're having a good day!"

Ishida blinked at them, slowly. The flickering light made his spectacles seem to bulge like a lizard's eyes.

Chad released Orihime's shoulder with a final squeeze, and stepped to the right, away from her. He relaxed a fraction as Ishida turned to follow him and that lethal arrow swung away from Orihime. "Nice day," he said. "Isn't it?" He tried to think of topics of conversation that might help reassure Ishida, or at the very least not set him off into a violent spasm, and was saddened at how few came to mind.

It had to be the infection. But Urahara had said that non-shinigami couldn't be affected. But if Ishida was affected, then any of them could be . . .

"Such a pretty day!" Orihime chirped, moving to the left. Ishida refocused on her, the arrow swinging across the widening arc between her and Chad. "The sun is shining nicely and the weather is lovely and maybe if we're very lucky some birdies will come and sing us a happy song --"

Lightning flared only a few blocks away, painting the sky white and throwing their shadows black against the road, and almost simultaneously reiatsu came thundering out in a long rolling boom.

Ishida hesitated, blinking again.

And Chad dived for him, sprinting a few steps forward and then throwing himself into a long tackle that caught Ishida at waist-level and smacked him down onto the ground. Something made a nasty snapping noise, but Chad didn't have time for it. Ishida cried out incoherently, his bow and arrow dissolving into blazes of light around his hands. His back arched as he squirmed underneath Chad's weight, screaming something about Hollows and how he wasn't going to let them_ get_ him, they were going to _get_ him . . .

"Hold him still," Orihime said breathlessly, falling to her knees beside them. Her six fairies swirled around her head in a complex of halos.

Chad reluctantly shifted his weight, then dropped hard onto Ishida's stomach, and pinned his friend down while he was trying to remember how to breathe.

"Right," Orihime said. "Sacred Twin Shield --"

In the distance, the lightning flashed again.

* * *

Rukia shifted position so that the wall was behind Yuzu and she was in front of Yuzu, and most importantly, so that she was between Yuzu and anyone or anything else that might try grabbing her, and invoked shikai. Sode no Shirayuki pulsed in her hand, responding to Ukitake-taichou's rising reiatsu and to the crackle of Ukitake-taichou's own zanpakutou. She could hear it, even from here; a sound like distant thunder, like the heartbeat of waves on the shore.

Yuzu was curled up in a tiny ball. That was probably the safest way for her to be at the moment. Rukia liked the girl, but she didn't have_ time_ to reassure her or pat her on the shoulder. Guarding her was going to take all her attention. She would have liked to be able to assist Ukitake-taichou -- and in her heart of hearts, she thought she might even have been able to be of some help -- but the most important thing she could do, for both Ukitake-taichou and for Yuzu, was to stop the girl being used as a hostage again. Keep her safe. For Kurosaki Ichigo. For Kurosaki Isshin. For all of them.

One of Ichimaru's minions came speeding at her. He was in white. He was blond. He had a nasty smile. He had a fragment of bone clinging to his head. He was tall and graceful. And most of all, he was pausing to sneer down at her and at Yuzu before attacking.

Well. Who was she to pass up a perfectly good opportunity.

"First dance!" she called. "White moon!"

The moron didn't even have the time to blink as a circle of ice formed round him and blasted skywards.

* * *

Thunder rolled across town. The sky was still cloudless, still serene, but the air had abruptly begun to hum as though a storm had been building for hours.

Renji lifted his face and sniffed at the air. "What the fuck?" he said.

Ichigo knew that he wasn't as good at spotting reiatsu as the other shinigami -- or at least, not as practiced -- but even he could feel _something_. But it was quicker to ask Renji than stand there and try to do it himself. "What is it?" he asked.

"Trouble," Renji said flatly, shedding his body and standing away from it in his shinigami uniform. "Captain-level reiatsu. Thataway." He nodded towards the south-west; now that he knew what direction to try looking in, Ichigo could feel it as well.

Something else struck Ichigo. "That's the way my home is," he said, the words coming slowly. "It couldn't --" Then he dumped his own body, leaving it collapsed there on the roof of the school. "Tell your artificial soul thing to look after my body too, and let's get moving."

"Don't lose your cool," Renji said. "It may not be --"

"Let's just assume it is and get moving," Ichigo snarled. Because the hell of it was, there was every reason why it might be his home, and none at all why it would be anywhere else.

* * *

Rukia had absolute faith in Ukitake-taichou. He was one of the oldest and most experienced and strongest captains in the Gotei 13. He'd even fought Yamamoto-taichou to a standstill, together with Kyouraku-taichou. (Well, all right, she wasn't entirely sure about the "standstill", but they hadn't lost, had they?) And they'd come so hurriedly to the world of the living that he hadn't even had time to get the usual limiter tattoo, which was currently proving to be a very good thing.

She was totally sure that he could handle the current situation.

The creature with the long scorpion-tail leered down at her, its braid swaying backwards and forwards.

What she wasn't sure about was whether _she_ could handle the current situation.

Yuzu was a handicap. Even though the girl had sensibly crawled into the nearest corner of wall and was curled up with her hands over her head (frankly the best position to adopt with Ukitake-taichou exerting himself nearby, Rukia wished just a bit that she could do the same thing herself), the fact of having to protect her meant that Rukia couldn't move around as much as she'd like to. Mobility was a useful thing in combat. Having to hold her position was hampering her style.

Kurosaki Isshin -- no, Shiba Isshin, Rukia corrected herself -- seemed to be handling himself adequately. The reiatsu that he was giving off was at the vice-captain level, possibly even rivalling some captains. Which explained a lot about Ichigo.

Now all that Rukia wanted was to get through the current situation with all of them in one piece, so that she could do some very serious complaining.

* * *

Ichimaru Gin fenced somewhat automatically with Shiba Isshin while considering his options. Fortunately Grimmjow (such a good boy, he really must say something nice to Aizen-taichou about him) had jumped in on Ukitake in a whirl of claws and teeth and hissing and spitting, so he had at least a few seconds leeway before Grimmjow learned a salutary lesson or two.

At that point, Shiba Isshin very nearly managed to cut a slice in Gin, and Gin had to give the man a bit more of his attention. This was all sorts of unreasonable. He'd been a vice-captain and he was supposed to have been out of practice for a hundred years or so now. Gin ought to have been able to cut him ass from elbow and have the time to drink a cup of tea while he was at it.

He was aware that the clock was ticking. It wasn't just a question of the Kurosaki boy showing up (he could be easily diverted and then cut down from behind) or Abarai-kun (who had no subtlety and even less brains): it was Urahara Kisuke and Shihouin Yoruichi. Either of them would complicate the situation. Both of them would make it a right little clusterfuck.

Well, the mission objective was already screwed six ways from Sunday. Weren't no way they were going to be taking Shiba Isshin away with them, let alone doing it quietly and discreetly and all that. And if they'd got there just five minutes earlier, before Ukitake had showed up . . . oh well, no use in crying over spilled milk, or spilled blood for that matter. The question now was what _could_ be achieved before pulling out.

Not much, he decided, as he sped backwards, parrying another set of blows from Shiba Isshin. They weren't going to be able to take the man alive, not with Ukitake making a nuisance of himself. Kuchiki Rukia wasn't worth the bother of grabbing for a hostage, and wasn't worth the exertion of killing. (Besides, he had to admit it: he kind of liked the way she looked at him.) So he'd lost a few Arrancar? So what. Aizen-taichou could always make more.

Secondary objectives and retreat, he decided.

"Shoot'im dead, Shinsou," he whispered, and his zanpakutou jumped and quivered eagerly in his hand as its blade shot out.

Shiba Isshin hadn't been expecting it. It took him squarely in the chest. He went down on one knee, still trying to parry -- hell, he was tough, no question of it -- and Gin was just about to finish him off when he heard the rush of incoming reiatsu.

He barely had the time to retract Shinsou and bring it round in a parry, and even then Shihouin Yoruichi kicked him three times, flipped round, and knocked him through the side of a building. If he hadn't had those little modifications from Aizen-taichou, he'd have been unconscious or dead. As it was, he was hurting.

It would have wasted too much time to stand round yelling for a retreat, so he just got the hell out of there and left the rest of them to it. Any Arrancar who didn't have the sense to run deserved whatever they got.

And hey, he did have one good thing to report to Aizen-taichou. Ukitake-taichou had to be infected as all hell. Now that was going to be . . . amusing.

* * *

Ichigo got there half a second before Renji, just in time to see the scorpion-thing bring its tail scything round just above Rukia's head in a move that would have decapitated her if she hadn't ducked, and that managed to take several hairs off the top of her head in any case. Under the circumstances, he didn't bother with challenges or anything like that, but simply whacked its mask in two and watched it dissolve into dust.

"Ichigo!" Rukia snarled at him. "That was my fight!"

"Ichi-nee-san?" a timid voice came from behind Rukia. Yuzu poked her head round the edge of Rukia's legs. "You're looking all weird."

A flying mass of white clothing and blue hair went sailing past, going through two buildings before coming to a stop. Ukitake came stalking after it, his sword somehow in two pieces (Ichigo vaguely remembered hearing something about him having a two-sword zanpakutou but had never got the full details) and lightning crackling round him in a nimbus, rippling through the long waves of his hair and the folds of his clothing.

Further down the street, as the clouds of dust faded, Ichigo could see his father. No. Wait. This was all wrong. Because his father was in shinigami clothing and he was lying there with a big wound in his shoulder and this wasn't supposed to have happened, his father and his family were supposed to have been kept _out_ of this, he'd gone to all this trouble to keep them safe, and now how dare his father go get into trouble like this!

And, the back of his head pointed out, what was his father doing in a shinigami outfit and a fight like this anyhow?

Urahara came swishing down off one of the roofs and dropped to his knees next to Isshin, pulling the man's kimono back in order to examine the wound.

Ichigo knew he ought to be doing something, doing anything, but at the moment he was having difficulty closing his mouth and putting two thoughts together. This was not supposed to be happening. This could not be happening. This should not be happening.

"Ichi-nee-san," Yuzu said, her voice trembling, "is Papa okay?"

All right. Save the day first. Kick his father's ass later. Ichigo could handle that.

* * *

Chad pinned the screaming Ishida down as the sparkling cocoon of Orihime's healing shield settled over him. He looked up to see Orihime frowning.

"You should be able to heal him, Inoue?" he asked. "Urahara-san showed you how?"

"I think so," Orihime said, biting her lip. "Though I'm having to use my defensive shield as well to stop my reiatsu from being infected. But I think it's working, and I think I can check you afterwards too. But I'm worried . . ."

Chad waited for her to say what she had in mind.

"If Ishida-kun can catch this," Orihime finally said, "then can _anyone_? And if he caught it when he was near Tousen, and he's been running all over town since then . . ."

"Heal him first," Chad said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach, the image of all Karakura infected. "Maybe it was just because he was a Quincy, after all. It's not as if Urahara-san would have known how it would affect a Quincy."

Inoue nodded, resolve settling into her face. "Yes," she said. "You're right. We need to heal him first. And then we can go and find out what's making all that noise over nearby."

Chad sighed. "I suppose we should," he agreed regretfully.

It was probably too much to hope that it hadn't been another catastrophe of some sort.

* * *

Ishida was falling backwards, back, down, through endless fields of cold black water, and his bow and arrows tumbled above him, out of his reach.

_Arm yourself with your pride,_ Kurotsuchi's voice taunted him. The worms came wriggling upwards with their spines and their baby-doll faces and wrapped themselves round his waist and legs.

It was too late now. He was the last of the Quincy. There would never be any more. He would die and nothing would save him. He would die and nothing _should_ save him because he had failed. The Hollows would eat them all and it would serve him right.

Nobody to help him. Nobody.

"Grandfather!" he called out in despair, but his grandfather was long gone and Kurotsuchi had killed him twice over. And Ishida had released Kurotsuchi on the world to kill again. And Ishida was a killer. And it was his fault. All his fault. And his bow came to his hand at last but now it was a serpent twined round his neck, it was Kurotsuchi's own bankai strangling him. He screamed and light came out from his mouth.

* * *

"Inoue! Get back!" Chad was having trouble keeping Ishida pinned down. Ishida might be bantamweight, but he was all muscle, and he was struggling like a madman.

"Just -- keep him steady -- a moment," Orihime said. Her hands knotted into fists as she forced her power into Ishida.

Ishida screamed. His back arched. A bolt of searing light came blazing out of his mouth, and Chad could feel the heat of it as it sizzled past him.

"Is it being purged out of him?" Chad asked hopefully.

"No! It's trying to change him! Talk to him, Yasutora-kun! Say something to distract him!" She grabbed Ishida's chin. "Ishida-kun! Stay with us! Hold on!"

Chad's fingers dug into Ishida's shoulders. "Ishida-kun!" he called. "You're stronger than this thing! We need you!"

* * *

Ishida heard voices in the distance. They were blaming him. He had let them die. He had let them all die, it was his fault, he had failed them, failed them all, Kurosaki, Kuchiki Rukia, even Yasutora and Inoue, and now that he had failed them there was nothing else to do but let the darkness take him

_hold on_

and he had failed his grandfather

_we need you_

and he had disappointed his father

_Ishida-kun_

and there was no pride left to hold on to

_Ishida-kun_

and it was easiest just to let the pain eat out his heart and leave him empty

_Ishida_

and forget that he had ever wanted to protect them

_please_

and in the distance, so very far away, he heard Inoue Orihime crying, and he would have turned back to protect her, but there was a huge black wall behind him. And each stone in the wall was something that he had done wrong. They tore at his hands when he tried to pull them down. And every stone had written on it, **PRIDE OF THE QUINCY**.

_Inoue, he's burning up_

Beyond the wall stood Ishida Uryuu in full Quincy uniform, his bow drawn in his hands. And Ishida held his own bow. He could fire. He could kill him.

_please, Ishida_

Everything was so beautifully simple, all white and black. It was time to destroy his master's worthless disciple, to cut out his heart and put an end to him and finish it all forever, and then maybe it would stop hurting.

_don't leave us_

Perhaps the voices would stop.

_You would do better to save the living than the dead._

_I want to be a powerful Quincy and protect the innocents from Hollows so that father will realise how important the Quincy are!_

_Some day you will understand what your father wants to protect, and when you really understand that, it will be because you know what you want to protect . . ._

Not what his father had wanted to protect, but who his father had wanted to protect, and now that he could see that, he could see that he had failed at that as well as everything else, and all he could do was finish it and shoot the arrow and die.

Ishida Uryuu waited.

_Master, you never hated the shinigami, even after they had killed us; you never wanted revenge; you only wanted to protect your son, and your unworthy grandson, and you put aside your own pride to do it . . ._

Ishida's hand loosened on the bow and he let it fall, and he felt his heart shiver in his chest as if it was breaking, and it hurt, it hurt so much.

_Ishida_

The world swung. He was falling upwards towards the light, he was the arrow from the bow, and someone had his shoulders and was pulling him up and out of the water, there was water on his face and he could hear the lightning. He was the broken sword and the broken road of pride and his heart was burning in him, but he could not sleep yet, he was needed. They had told him so.

* * *

Gin couldn't quite bring himself to stand still. He wandered up and down the hall as he made his report, pausing to gaze at Aizen-taichou where he sat on his throne. He couldn't help thinking that Aizen-taichou wasn't taking it too well.

"So," Aizen-sama finally said. "No survivors. Except yourself."

Gin shrugged. "They were Arrancar, weren't they? Ya can always make some more, Aizen-taichou."

Aizen tilted his head, resting his cheek on his hand and looking at Gin thoughtfully. "You weren't always so careless with the lives of your subordinates, Gin."

Gin shrugged. "Guess I got my priorities a bit more in order. Even if Shiba Isshin survives, ain't much he can tell them -- after all, they'd have cured it the first time if they could, wouldn't they? And he'll be infected. All of them will. We might even get lucky and have the Kurosaki brat get it too." The thought made him want to snicker. "And then there's Ukitake. Guess he'll be too principled to risk going back to Soul Society if he's infected. We can lead another mission, wipe him and the others out while they're in Karakura. Deal with them all."

Aizen shook his head, once. "Not for the moment. I think we can use our forces better than that. Don't you, Gin?"

"If ya say so, Aizen-taichou," Gin agreed submissively, since it was obviously what his Captain wanted him to say.

Still, the idea of wiping them all out kept its appeal. Maybe Aizen-taichou would change his mind, if he gave it a little while. Nice and permanent. Clean it all up. Make it tidy.

Maybe Aizen-taichou was just getting a little careless. Gin would have to take care of things for him. That was it.

He smiled. Nice and mild. Nice and sneaky. He could take care of everything. Aizen-taichou could trust him.


	11. Chapter Eleven

CONTAGION

**CONTAGION**

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

Ichigo went down on his knees next to his father, and grabbed what was left of Isshin's jacket. "Dad! You moron -- you idiot -- what the hell do you think you're doing, dressing up as a shinigami and --"

"He is a shinigami," Ukitake said. He was standing right behind Ichigo. Ichigo could feel the prickle of the Captain's reiatsu all the way up his back.

He could have sworn he'd heard that Rukia's Captain was one of the_ nicer_ ones. Ukitake wasn't sounding very nice and friendly at the moment.

"Papa!" Yuzu squeaked. She squirmed under Ichigo's arm and threw herself on top of Isshin, hugging him desperately hard.

Urahara sighed. "I am _trying_ to apply first aid here. Ukitake-taichou, what a pleasure to see you, will you kindly remove the younger generation while I get Shiba-san here sorted out."

Ichigo blinked. He looked up at Ukitake.

Ukitake wasn't blinking. "So you knew?"

"I knew. Shihouin Yoruichi knew. Kurosaki-kun here was entirely ignorant."

Ukitake took a long breath, suppressed a cough, and reached down to touch Ichigo's shoulder. "I suggest we let Urahara work, Kurosaki-kun. We can ask your father for some more details when he's fitter. And your sister --"

"Oh." Ichigo put one arm around Yuzu, and cuddled her against him. He could feel her trembling. A moment later, he remembered to say, "Thank you, sir. For looking after my sister."

"My pleasure," Ukitake said. "Now. Situation reports, Kuchiki, Abarai-fukutaichou, Kurosaki-kun. If you please."

Renji stepped forward, tossing his hair back. "We came, we saw, we --"

Rukia kicked him in the ankle.

Renji swallowed. "That is, um, situation secure, Ukitake-taichou. Ichimaru Gin got away, but all the other Arrancar have been purified except for one of them who Shihouin Yoruichi's currently got under control and is holding in case we want to question it. Perimeter secure and no hostile reiatsu apparent. Casualties," he sneaked a glance at Isshin, "being treated."

Ukitake nodded. "Good." He turned to Ichigo. "Kurosaki-kun, is your friend Inoue-kun anywhere nearby?"

Ichigo tried to think where he'd last seen her. "I don't know," he admitted. "I think she was with Chad, but I don't know where he is, or Ishida either. Is it so she can patch up my father? Because it looks as if Urahara's got that under control --"

"More than that," Ukitake said patiently. "We all need to be checked for the disease, and healed, if it is possible for her to do such a thing. You have realised that we were all exposed?"

Ichigo looked around the group. In the excitement of the fight, and the shock of seeing his father like that (he wasn't going to go into exactly what the 'that' was, because that'd mean he'd have to actually think about it, and about the way that Urahara had said _Shiba-san_, and all of that) he'd lost track of that point. "Oh," he said.

"Precisely," Ukitake said, and coughed.

* * *

Ishida came up to consciousness with the feeling that he had been beaten all over by big sticks. Every part of him ached. Even the parts that he wouldn't usually admit existed in the presence of ladies.

"He's awake!" Orihime squealed, clasping his head against her bosom.

Maybe he'd died and gone to Heaven.

No. Heaven wouldn't have the particular sweat-and-mouldy-dried-goods of Urahara Kisuke's shop. Reluctantly, he pried himself out of Orihime's chest and looked around.

Then again, perhaps he was still hallucinating, because he seemed to be lying on a mat next to Kurosaki Isshin, and the older man was in shinigami robes. And bandages. A lot of bandages.

"Are you all right, Ishida-kun?" a gentle voice asked. Ishida looked across to see Ukitake-taichou from the Thirteenth Division (one of the few Captains who seemed relatively sane) sitting there with a cup of tea.

"I think so, sir," Ishida said. With Orihime's help, he managed to sit upright. "I feel a bit wobbly. I think I, um, had it. The thing."

"And yet Inoue-kun cured you," Ukitake said with an approving smile.

Ishida fought the automatic urge to distrust shinigami. Even ones who were smiling at him. "Well, yes, but --" Suddenly a horrifying thought came to him. "Sir, you can't tell Kurotsuchi Mayuri about this! He'd want to -- he'd --" He quite literally couldn't form the words; his mind was full of raw and bleeding images.

Ukitake made calming motions with his free hand. "Don't worry, Ishida-kun. Any matters of healing go to Unohana-taichou, and she won't hand anyone over to Kurotsuchi-taichou. Besides, we've something here that we need to sort out first." His gaze shifted to Kurosaki Isshin.

"I'm unconscious," Kurosaki Isshin muttered, his eyes still shut. "Go away."

"What happened to reporting to a superior officer?" Ukitake asked mildly.

Kurosaki Isshin opened his eyes. "That would be the case _if_ I were still part of the Gotei 13, which I'm not . . . Ukitake-san."

"Oh. Like that, is it, Shiba-fukutaichou?"

"Pretty much, Ukitake-san."

Ishida might or might not have his Quincy powers, but his sense for oncoming danger was still perfectly active, and it was currently firing off at about twice the rate it had earlier when he'd been trapped between Urahara Kisuke and an insane mutating Tousen Kaname. He squirmed away from the two men, with Orihime helping drag him.

"You are aware of what's going on?" Ukitake inquired.

Kurosaki Isshin's face closed up like a steel trap. "Urahara informed me."

"And?"

"And what's there to be said? We failed once before." He levered himself up on one elbow. "Look. Last time this happened, they had to kill everyone who was affected. That was the _only_ way to stop it. You think I wanted to get involved again? That I wanted to expose my daughters to it?"

"And so you ran away," Ukitake said flatly. A gust of wind plucked at his sleeves and stirred his hair; reiatsu rippled like a wave through the room.

Kurosaki Isshin paused, about to say something, then sighed. The energy went out of him with the breath, and his head sagged. "Ukitake-taichou. I was a healer, do you understand that? I was vice-captain of Fourth Division. That meant something. And for the best, the very best of reasons, I got involved in the project, and the subjects _died_, and the shinigami who'd been working on it _died_, and the healers who'd been working under me _died_, and I have no idea why I should have managed to live. And every time I looked at my patients after that, I knew I could fail them. And every time Unohana-taichou looked at me, I could see how I'd failed in her eyes. And every time my brother spoke to me -- he knew I'd done something wrong, and he didn't know what it was, but he and I both knew it was there. And so I ran away. I faked my own death and I ran away and I came to Kisuke for a gigai and I have not used healing kidou for decades, and I have managed to save some lives, and at least, at the very _least_ I have not killed anyone else with my own damn stupidity and incompetence."

Ukitake leaned forward, holding Kurosaki Isshin's eyes with his own. "You talk as if you were the only leader who has managed to get his men killed."

Kurosaki Isshin snorted. "It's not like that."

"No?" Ukitake put down his cup. "Well, then, it is like this. We have all been in close proximity to this contagion -- you, me, your son and daughter, Kuchiki and Abarai and Shihouin Yoruichi and Urahara Kisuke -- and it is already spreading back in Soul Society. Aizen Sousuke thought you were important enough to kidnap or kill. I think that I . . . will trust his judgment."

Kurosaki Isshin didn't answer.

"Inoue-kun. Please do what you can with this man's injuries." Ukitake rose. "Ishida-kun, we should go downstairs. They're questioning the prisoner down there, and he may have something useful to say."

"I couldn't even save Masaki," Kurosaki Isshin said quietly. He didn't look up. "I couldn't save Ichigo from all this. I couldn't even protect my daughters. Ukitake-taichou, find someone else."

"There is nobody else," Ukitake said with a terrible gentleness. "Inoue-kun. Do what you can, please. We have very little time."

* * *

"You seem to be clear, Abarai-fukutaichou," Tessai said. He frowned down at Renji as though this was somehow a problem. "Of course, you'll have to stay here a little longer in quarantine until we're certain."

"I don't see why you can't just tell us if we're infected or not," Renji said. "Unohana-taichou just did this thing with her hands --" he gestured meaningfully, "-- and could do it."

Tessai glared at him. "Unohana-taichou is far more experienced in the healing arts than I am. It requires an expert healer to be able to assess the patient at that level, and even then it was probably a couple of hours after your exposure -- am I right? Yes, exactly. It takes that long for the disease to develop to a quantifiable level."

Renji nodded briefly and turned away. He supposed that was why they were all having to sit around here with nothing to do except question the prisoner. There was the side-option of questioning Urahara Kisuke or Shihouin Yoruichi, but he didn't think they'd talk. The two Kurosaki girls had been left upstairs with the kids who lived here with Urahara (Renji was curious about that as well, but it could wait till later) and reassured that their father was okay and Ichigo was okay and everything was going to be all right. Renji wasn't sure about the last point, but for the moment they were safe where they were.

"I don't know nothing," the prisoner growled, "and you can't make me tell it anyhow. Bunch of wimps. Let me out of these chains and I'll give you a proper fight."

That was pretty much all he'd said so far. He was hung around with chains and kidou contraptions that Urahara said he'd thought should block any risk of contagion, and was sitting in the middle of an open area of Urahara's private training ground area. (Renji wanted one of those. He wondered if Urahara did requests.) So far all that they'd found out was that his name was Grimmjow Jaggerjack, and that he thought they were all wimps, "except for that guy with the white hair".

Renji's considered opinion was that this Grimmjow fellow should join up with Eleventh. He wondered if they could get Madarame or Yumichika to come down and help with the interrogation. Maybe some information would slip from brawler to brawler via some sort of mental osmosis.

A spiral of black butterflies came drifting down from above, just as Ukitake-taichou and Ishida entered the training area. One of them made directly for Ukitake-taichou. Another headed for Renji.

"Huh?" Renji said, extending a bemused finger.

"I sent messages to your Captain and anyone else relevant," Tessai said from behind him. "Since I hadn't been involved in the fight, I was definitely not contaminated, so there was no risk of contagion."

Renji hadn't even begun to reason through that chain of thought. "Thanks," he said, and lifted the butterfly to his ear.

_"Renji,"_ the butterfly intoned in his Captain's voice. _"I am told that you cannot report directly because of the risk of contagion, but that you have stopped an attack by Ichimaru Gin, driven him and his forces off, and taken a prisoner, and that you are now working under Ukitake-taichou's direction."_

Renji turned around, and gave Tessai a deep bow of gratitude. He wondered if he could get the guy to write up his next few reports as well. This all sounded so much better than just _got into fight towards end of fight, now working out what the hell to do next._

_"In any case,"_ Kuchiki-taichou's voice continued, _"you are to keep on working with Ukitake-taichou. Do not engage with Urahara Kisuke unless strictly necessary."_

Well, Renji reflected, it probably wasn't important to tell Kuchiki-taichou that right now they were all hanging out in Urahara's place. And he'd be very careful how he talked to Urahara. Right.

_"Continue to gather information,"_ Kuchiki-taichou instructed._ "Ensure the safety of your colleagues. Make sure that any possible risks of infection are treated with extreme caution. Remain where you are in the world of the living until you are cleared of all possible danger of infection; notify me and Fourth Division at once if you are infected."_

Renji's eyes strayed to where Rukia was arguing with Ichigo. No way he wasn't going to ensure her safety.

_"I await more information."_ The butterfly fell silent.

Renji walked over to Tessai. "Can you take charge of this thing?" he asked. "I'm guessing that if I try and send any message by it, if I'm infected then the reiatsu might infect it too. Or whatever. You know."

"Of course," Tessai said. He gently removed the butterfly from Renji's finger.

Renji glanced across to Ukitake-taichou. For some reason he was holding his own butterfly a good foot away from his ear, and his hair was drifting out in the opposite direction from the volume of whatever message he was getting. "Do I want to know?" he asked.

Tessai eyed the situation. "Probably not," he decided.

* * *

Ukitake passed his butterfly over to Tessai to look after, and flexed his hand tenderly. He could swear that the volume of Shunsui's complaints had gone all the way down to the bone.

Really, it wasn't as if Ukitake had _tried_ to get into a fight, or to deal with Ichimaru Gin, or run the risk of infection. It wasn't anything that Shunsui wouldn't have done himself if he'd been here. It was most unfair.

Still, for a moment it had distracted him from his current set of worries, and perhaps that in itself had been Shunsui's idea. Or maybe that was simply giving Shunsui too much credit.

Settling calm on his shoulders like a mantle, he strolled over to where Urahara was waving complicated instruments at the captive Hollow, who was in turn trying to reach Urahara and rip vital organs out of him. "Can I help?" he asked.

Urahara glanced up at him from under his hat. And that hat was new, as well. Ukitake remembered Urahara without the hat, without the constant shadow over his eyes, from the days when they had both been Captains together. Urahara had always seemed so open and pleasant.

As had Aizen.

Maybe, Ukitake reflected, he wasn't the world's best judge of people.

"How are you at interrogations?" Urahara asked idly. "Nothing more to tell you at the moment, Ukitake-taichou." The quick flick of his eyes around the others in the practice area made it quite clear that he was watching them as much as Ukitake was.

Urahara knew the situation as well as Ukitake did. If any of them were infected and lost control, then matters went from simply bad to potentially catastrophic. Kuchiki or Abarai -- or even Kurosaki, if they caught him off guard -- could probably be subdued and confined, and maybe even healed. But if Ukitake himself, or Urahara, or Shihouin Yoruichi, was infected and lost control, then it wouldn't be a question of subdual; it'd be a question of killing, and collateral damage, and spreading the infection even wider. That was why none of them could go back to Seireitai for the moment. It would destroy any hopes of maintaining Unohana's current quarantine, stretched as that was in any case.

Ukitake knew, as well, that he couldn't afford to show his concern. It would only alarm the younger ones. For the moment, they would just have to believe that their Captain had everything under control. That was, after all, part of a Captain's job.

He looked at the blue-haired prisoner. His style of dress was rather dramatic -- swinging open white jacket and white trousers, almost as if he was trying to display the black hole that went through his stomach. He looked a ruffian of the sort that usually gravitated to Eleventh.

"Scared of me?" the captive snarled. "Let me go and I'll show you that you ought to be!"

"Not at all," Ukitake said, with his most pleasant smile. "I'm just considering how much information to demand in return for letting you go."

The captive stared blankly for a moment. "You'd _let_ me go?"

Ignoring the expressions on the faces of Kuchiki and Kurosaki and Abarai and Ishida, which suggested that they'd decided he'd gone insane and were working out how to sneak round behind him and jump him, Ukitake shrugged. "Why not?" he said blandly. "But I'd like the answers to a few questions first."

"Huh." The captive folded his arms. "How do I know you won't just cheat me and leave me in these damn chains?"

Ukitake leaned forward a little, and let his reiatsu rise. "Because," he said, "I have already beaten you. I struck you down. I have absolutely no reason to worry about you. I don't care if I release you or not. So I'm the only person here who _will_ consider releasing you."

"You damn bastard!" the captive yelled, wrenching at his chains. "Let me out of here and I'll show you who'd win! You fucking tight-assed long-haired pansy wimp shinigami coward --"

Ukitake twitched a shoulder and began to turn away.

"What the fuck do you want to know, anyway?" the captive snarled. "You want to know if Aizen-sama's in charge? Fine. Aizen-sama's in charge."

Ukitake paused. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Kurosaki Ichigo slipping off to the room where they'd left Shiba Isshin. "Well," he said thoughtfully. "Perhaps a couple of questions."

"Like what?"

"Like how many of you there are," Ukitake said, signalling to Kuchiki Rukia to fetch him a chair. "For a start."

* * *

Ichigo stalked into the room and kicked his father in the butt.

Isshin shot upright with a yelp, clutching at his rear with one hand and his bandaged chest with the other. "Ungrateful son!" he wailed. "If poor Masaki could see you now . . ."

"Yeah," Ichigo said. "If she could. Tell me, _dad_, did you ever tell her the truth?"

Isshin took his hand away from his tailbone and looked at Ichigo. Layers of casual idiocy seemed to fall away from him as he straightened his shoulders. "Parts," he said quietly.

"Which parts?"

"That I wasn't human."

"And how did she take that?"

"Quite well," Isshin said. He grinned for a moment. "In fact, she insisted on checking me all over for signs of non-humanness, in the nude --"

"Arrgh!" Ichigo put his hands over his ears. "I didn't need to know that!"

"You asked," Isshin said, serious again. "Other parts I didn't tell her, because she didn't need to know them. Why should I have thought that the shinigami would ever come scratching at our door? I'd have told you when you were older. When the girls were older."

"How old?" Ichigo demanded suspiciously.

Isshin ran a hand through his hair. "Older. Idiot son. Look, if we could have lived through all this without _you_ having to become a shinigami, without any of this happening, would you have _wanted_ to know? Wouldn't you rather just have got through school and university and lived without all of this?"

Ichigo was just going to say _Of course_, but something cut him off. To have lived without the power to protect the people he cared about? Never to have known Rukia, or met that moron Ishida, or seen Zangetsu, or kicked Zaraki Kenpachi's gorilla ass, or beaten Kuchiki Byakuya, or been healed by Orihime, or seen the sun rise over Seireitai, or any of it --

"Forget it," he finally said. "Just tell me the truth, dad. Are you a Shiba?"

Isshin nodded.

Ichigo sighed. "So that's why everyone said I looked like Shiba Kaien -- oh, crap." He went white. "That means that Shiba Kuukaku's my aunt. Oh god. I'm dead."

"Did you see little Kuukaku-chan?" Isshin asked eagerly. "How did she grow up?"

Ichigo tried to square _little Kuukaku-chan_ with the figure in his memory. "A one-armed fiend from hell who likes blasting people up in firework cannons," he reported.

Isshin smiled. "That's my little Kuukaku-chan."

Ichigo slapped his forehead. "So you're a Shiba and you were a shinigami. Which Division were you with, dad?"

"Fourth," Isshin said, more soberly. "I was vice-captain. I think pretty Isane-kun would have taken my place; she was third seat at the time."

Ichigo vaguely remembered a tall, nervous-looking, graceful woman following Unohana-taichou around. He nodded. "I think so, yeah. But -- dad -- why? What happened?"

Isshin sat down again on his pallet. He waved Ichigo to the other one. "It's a long story."

"Talk," Ichigo said, seating himself.

A yell drifted in from outside. "I'm only 6th Espada because I haven't had the fucking time to challenge the others yet! When I do I'll be first!"

Isshin ignored it. "Urahara-taichou," he said, "was one of the most gifted Twelfth Division captains in history. Everyone agreed on that. When he came up with an idea to treat Hollow pathology as a set of symptoms rather than a causal aetiology, it was a whole new way of looking at it. If his theory held water, then we could not only excise or cure the Hollow symptoms, we could also graft useful abilities onto shinigami volunteers -- the battle shapeshifting, for instance, or the ability to fire bolts of force."

Ichigo nodded. "Sort of like treating pneumonia by treating the coughs and temperature and everything separately, rather than an antibiotic for the whole disease?"

"Fairly close," Isshin said. "Though you have to bear in mind that we really know far less about Hollow pathology than we do about pneumonia. It's partly a question of ethics -- we always wanted to purify Hollows and send them on, rather than force them to stay in their state of pain and hunger. A lot of what we know about them comes from observation on the battlefield. Only lunatics want to go and study them in Hueco Mundo."

"Did you ever do that, dad?"

Isshin coughed. "_Anyhow_, so, Urahara-taichou had this plan. He'd created a focusing tool which he called the Hougyoukou, which was supposed to be able to work on the structure of the soul. He'd got me helping him -- both as vice-captain of Fourth, and with some of the Shiba documentation on alchemy. Unohana-taichou had partly released me from my duties to help in the project. She wasn't fully aware of the details. She trusted my judgment." He looked down at his hands. "Not many people were aware of the full scope of the thing. Urahara-taichou wasn't entirely sure they'd approve. He was always a great believer in it being easier to get forgiveness than approval. He still is."

"It went wrong," Ichigo guessed.

Isshin nodded. "At first it seemed to be working. We were succesfully modifying the structure of the Hollows. Reducing them to ordinary souls. They became -- almost plastic. And the shinigami who'd volunteered to be part of it were showing abilities usually only seen in Hollows. The only odd thing was that some of them began finding odd bony outgrowths on their faces, or left in places where they'd been sleeping like cast-off shells."

Ichigo could literally feel his blood turn to ice. His hand moved to touch the part of his face where that mask thing had manifested.

"And then it went to hell." Isshin didn't look at Ichigo. "The Hollows started mutating. Some of them partly tore off their masks. Their power grew exponentially. Some of the affected shinigami turned into fullgrown Hollows themselves. Others manifested bone masks and went mad. They had to be stopped. We managed to heal a few, but then the healers were affected. Unohana-taichou had to be brought in. With her help, we used multi-healer groups to work on them, with some of the healers shielding and others applying the healing reiatsu. Even so, we lost more; they had to be purified and sent on. By the time we had finished -- Ichigo, I want you to understand this -- almost the entire group was _dead_."

Ichigo swallowed. He could feel fear in his throat like a crawling insect.

"Yamamoto-soutaichou had to be given the full details," Isshin went on, monotone. "He and the Chamber of 46 agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea to let everyone know about it. Even the other Captains didn't get the full details, just that Urahara-taichou had stepped over the line and was being exiled. His vice-captain hadn't been involved in the project at all. He'd never approved of it. About the one time in Kurotsuchi-fukutaichou's life that he actually did the ethical thing." He snorted a dry laugh. "I wasn't blamed. Not formally. Urahara-taichou himself insisted that I'd just been led astray. A tool. A fool. They let me return to my duties. But it wasn't over. Every time I tried to heal a patient, I saw those damn bone masks, that crawling flesh. I saw it in Unohana-taichou's face when she spoke to me. She was never less than perfectly polite. Do you understand? She knew and I knew and there was nothing more to be said."

Ichigo would have reached out to his father, but he didn't know how. This wasn't the father that he knew, the one who he was used to fighting with, arguing with, insulting, ignoring . . . this was a different person. There was a note of hopelessness in Isshin's voice that he didn't know how to cope with. He didn't know how to protect his father from this.

"Kaien was a bright boy, but even then he knew that something was wrong." Isshin looked up at last. "Kaien was like you, Ichigo. I know he's dead. Urahara passed on that he'd died. He'd fought bravely and he'd died doing the right thing. He would never have understood what I tried to do. But he did understand that I'd done something wrong and shamed our House and . . ." He trailed off. "I faked my death. I couldn't stand their eyes any longer. I was on a solo mission; I left traces to suggest I'd died, and I ran. I eventually found Urahara and I told him that he owed me something. He gave me a gigai and I lived as a human. And then later there was Masaki, and you, but . . ."

Ichigo kicked his father in the face.

Isshin went over like a sack of potatoes.

Ichigo stood over him. "You know," he said, his conversational tone somehow distinct from the anger and fear that wrestled inside him, "dad, I don't care whether it was Urahara's fault or your fault or whoever's fault, but right now, I need your help."

Isshin pulled himself upright again and rubbed his cheek. "Yes," he said flatly. "You all do."

"No." Ichigo stepped forward, and grabbed Isshin's hand, pulling it up to touch his cheek. "Dad, you don't understand. Urahara did something to make me a shinigami again, that time earlier, and ever since then --" He could barely get the words out. "I haven't told anyone about this, dad, because what the hell was I supposed to say? There is this bone mask thing, dad, and there is a voice which talks to me and tries to take me over. It almost did it once and I nearly killed someone." Because whatever he'd wanted that time, and however much he'd wanted to hammer Kuchiki Byakuya's sneering face into the dust, it hadn't been to _kill_ the man. "Dad, please. What you're saying -- if it's happening to me, too -- dad, _please_." The words had to be forced out, like hard dry stones. "If I -- if I hurt someone, Rukia, Karin, Yuzu . . ."

There was a long silence. Then Isshin said, "Idiot son," and cuffed him across the ears.

"Ow," Ichigo said, and punched back.

"This whole affair has been badly handled," Isshin said. He pulled himself to his feet. "Right. I need to talk to Urahara-taichou. And then I have some experiments I need to run."


End file.
